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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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Sailor 



By JOHN MARSHALL DOGGETT 



Words to Song of 

Hugh Allone, Sailor. 



^^^^. 




[Badge of Allone as Life-Saver] 




RICHMOND, VA.: 

Whittet & Sheppekson, Printers, Tenth and Main Streets. 

1886. 



,^^^'' 

tV 



Copyright 

BY 

J. M. DOGGETT, 

1886. 



Printed by Bound by 

Whittet & Shepperson, Eandolph & English, 

Richmond, Va. Biciimond, Va. 



"The most gratifying results have attended the operations of the Life-sav- 
ing service during the last fiscal year. The observance of the provision of 
law, requiring the apijointment of the force emploj'ed in this service to be 
made "solely with reference to their fitness, and without reference to their 
political or party affiliation," has secured the result which may confidently be 
expected in any branch of public employment where such a rule is applied . 
As a consequence, this service is composed of men well qualified for the per. 
formance of their dangerous and exceptionally important duties." 

President Cleveland, Message to Congress, 1885. 
• 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



THE following "book of words," to parts of the fore- 
castle concerts of the "Americ" (Capt. Tiiton) while 
she was on her way from the Old World to the New, is a 
sort of off-duty report of war-correspondents. The myste- 
rious mal-de-mer, (that real sea-serpent which the major 
part of the travelling world have but too plainly seen), 
while it often baffled the "beloved physician," ship's-doc- 
tor Lucas, is said at times to have retreated before the di- 
vine voice of Allone — member of the "Americ" previous 
to his unconsciously revealhig his lovely character as 
Keeper at Cape Fear. Little Echo, the daughter of a 
Stewardess, was the idol of the crew. 

Allone had what he called his "songs without words," 
and in such demand were they among the 'sick' that 
Master Tuton one night remarked in pleasantry that the 
Sta.te-rooms made such a prisoner of Hugh that the Offi- 
cers of the Propeller would have to serve a writ — habeas 
corpus. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 

Allone's masterpiece was voted to be "The Raven"; 
and snake-charming Echo's to be 

"First of all and always" 

" Home, Sweet Home." And so good-by to our well-nigh 
"libel" of a libretto — would that wizard Edison could have 
been on hand with phonograph to testify that it were as 
vain to attempt to report Allone himself as to try embody 
in a new "Flying Dutchman" the music of the spheres 
when the morning stars sang together. — Reps. 

N. B. — Of Captaiu Tutou's "strange eventful history" I 
gather the following cardinal points, which may do in a measure 
for a kind of compass to the memory, or rather serve as a skele- 
ton, so to say, of the otherwise mysterious and confusing phe- 
nomena of the role — a title role in its way — which he was called 
on by eternal Providence to act out upon our modern stage of 
events : — 

' 1. He was born on banks of the Elbe. The 
date of his birth remains doubtful, 
1 st Age : 2. But we ai'e certain that he early left the birth- 

them/a7ii(aud \ j)]ace, owing to the poverty and la-ge family 
weanling.) of his parents, and also, it must be confessed, 

to his own "truant disposition," and emi- 
grated to England ; a mere urchin. 
2nd Age: | 3. That he went to school at Stratford in War- 
the sdiool hoy I wickshire ; and there studied, most, Eng- 
(acd croft-lad.) j lish. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



3rd Age . | 
the lover (of^ 
MiltoD.) I 



f4. 



4tli Age : 
the soldier (ag't ' 
Napoleon.) 



f 7. 



5th Age : 
(the Justice.) 



When we next hear of him he had worked his 
way, by Bath, to London and settled, having 
married a reigning beauty whose family- 
name was Charter — of gentle birth. 
Then he came to America to seek an Indepen- 
dence — the secret of the shifting scenes of 
his career. He is elected to the captaincy. 
At last he made a permanent home of the 
new world ; being blest in his household we 
will not say in spite of, but rather through 
the crucial trials of two family quarrels— a 
rebellion and a civil war they were called, the 
first on a matter of his own authority over his 
children after they were grown ; the second, 
a difficulty between the brothers. "^ 
Becoming after all, and before all, a model 
citizen, thus prove7a by those dispensations ; 
''representing" the saxou race, which has been 
strikingly characterized as the Redeemer of 
Modern History— as the saver of these our 
times. We have "nought extenuated," cer- 
tainly "nought set down in malice," in this 
bare prosaic silhouette or shadow of the man, 
leaving it to others to reproduce the rounded 
poetry of his life, to bring out in bold relief 
his all-redeeming traits, his divine nature and 
mission .— \_Ed. ] 



a One of his sons, Charter Tuton, seems to have been the occasion, if not 
the cause, of this misunderstanding. 



TABLE. 



Page. 

Surfmen's Burial, 9 

Allone's Obeisance, 13 

Archangels' Hymn, : 14 

The " Crusher" Dude ; a Photo', 16 

A Rough Log, 17 

Sonnet on Tableau, 18 

Rose of Brettony, 19 

Wandering Jew, 20 

Cupido, 21 

Our Captain, 22 

The Rose-tree, 23 

The Three Stages, 24 

Echo at Bar, 25 

Colin's Love, 26 

The Storm, , 27 

Jesu Keeper, 28 

Max, the Blind Seer, 30 

Ferdinand to Miranda, 71 

Tobacco, 72 

"With Downcast Eye," 73 

The Giant's Grave, 74 

Hilltop Zoe, 82 

Sailor's Plea, 83 

The Water Loo, 84 

" Notes," — _ ^^ 85 



TABLE. 

Page. 

The •' Communists," 85 

German "Bier" Song, 86 

Monticello, 86 

" On Yestereve," 87 

"Model's" Prayer, 88 

Sailor's Kiddle, 88 

Sabbath Morn, 89 

Macaulay's Virginia, . 90 

Je\vish Song, 91 

Adieux, 92 

Our Sphere, 93 

The Eagle and the Python, 95 

Solo of a Reporter, 95 

Jesuite, 97 

Castle Teutoberg, 98 

Schuechterne Tritte, 99 

A " Salvo," 101 

Logic of Events, 102 

Andromache, 103 

Notes from a Log-book, 106 

Jeremiacs, • 110 

To John Smith, ' 111 

Landlord's Lass, 113 

An Item, 114 

Ideal Beau, lU 

A Girl's Heart, 116 

The Clearing, 117 

Maiden's Adventure, 118 

A Yam, 119 

To-day, 119 



TABLE. 

Page. 

Miserere, 121 

Triangle Player, 122 

ANote, 125 

The Riddle of the Sphinx, 125 

"Dei Me Nun Katheudein," 126 

Tuton, 127 

To Tacita, 129 

Hills of Carroll, ^ 130 

LiUth, ^ 131 

Echo Debutante, 133 

Thomas Jefferson, 134 

When the Rude Nor'wester, 136 

"Y'r Uncle Sam," 136 

The Patrolman, 137 

Hymn, 141 

Lines, 142 

The Cunning Loco-motive, 143 

The Comforter, 144 

Now that the Stately Craft's Pulsating Form, 144 

How Fair, 145 

A Yarn, . 146 

Old Politics on "Canvass," 149 

A Matin, 151 

Easter Hymn, 152 

Virgin Mary, 153 

On my "Rounding" 33J Years, 154 

The White Boat, 155 

A Posie, 157 

" Po'sie," 159 

Leusina, 160 



TABLE. 

Page. 

Madcap; May, __^^ ^_^ ^__, 161 

To a Cold Beauty, 163 

Twilight, 163 

Note to Horace, 164 

'Tis an Old Story, 165 

Disgusted, 165 

Forestry Song, 165 

Blue and Gray, 167 

House not Made with Hands, 168 

Nellie Arthur, 168 

To You who Jeer, 169 

Maid of Holland, 169 

Goldfish in Vase, 170 

Jack's Love, 171 

Plato's Idea, 171 

Helen at Troy, 174 

Air, 179 

•All in a Lifetime,' 180 

Echo's Exhortation, 180 

Christmas Eve, 181 

The Katydid, 182 

The Zephyrs, 184 



Allone's Songs. 



BOOK I. 




Our All one. 
"He is risen ; he is not iiere." 



A L LOME'S Songs. 



Surfmeiis Burial. 



DROOP the colors half-mast high, 
In the sheltering harbor nigh, 
Honor thus the three to give. 
Nobly dead that others live. 
O'er the Cape the westering sun, 
Clear-bright, tells the day well done. 

Gently now the creeds unite 
Round the fallen of the fight. 
Flora, too, hath strewn her best 
Over each devoted breast . 
Immortels bedewed with tears 
Circle on the holy biers. 

Well may sacred Music bring 
Tribute to the offering — 
Softly pour the plaintive strain 
Where the trinity are lain. 
There be the white cross of home, 
Planted under heaven's dome. 
2 



lO ALLONE S SONGS. 

Deeply rest the saving three; 
Mourn, our commonweal' ; for ye 
Snatched the stranger from the tomb, 
Could not save yourselves from doom ! . 
Hearts that love can so command 
Make the life-blood of a land. 

Such be they that prove their truth. 
Solace to the widow's ruth, 
Comfort to the orphaned hence, 
Lend, O kindly Providence. 
Servants of the sister States, 
Faith like yours them consecrates. 

■ — Bv Frank BitterejiiL 



Note. — Apropos of Surf men, the following private letter, writ- 
ten from Home, and added here by permission, mny not be an 
useless ''gloss."— Eu. 

" The Life- Saving Service. 

" Having takeu with m^ a couple of the reports of this Service 
to beguile the weary hours of my crossing the 'ocean ferry,' I 
have thought, since omiag ashore, thit it would not be ub wel- 
come to you to be reminded, thus by a note or so, of our ' Uncle 
Sam,' in o^e of his noblest aad most bountiful forms. 

" Ttie Life-Saviug Service is a splendid army of hardy surf men, 
that has existed, as a regular branch of pnblic Service, for about 



ALLONES SONGS. II 

a dozen years Its chief duty is the rescue of sailors imperilled 
along the coasts of the Atlantic— that unruly and unmerciful body 
of water. It is surely, rs the reports say, 'an organized graj^ple 
with death.' 

"It consists of stations, scattered at proper intervals on the 
shore, each station having five men and a chief, who is called the 
keeper. From these companies go out patiolmeu, to constitute a 
long chain of manly vigilants, amid the unseen demons of the 
blasts. 'For hundreds of miles,' the official statement for 1881 
tells us, 'of dark coast, beaten by incessant breakers, every night, 
and all night long, .... a line of solitary men march and counter- 
march to and from each other, with eyes that ransack the offing. 
. . . The way is long, . . . difficult, perilous. It lies along a waste, 
. . . whereon to walk is to trudge, ... at limes, to stumble over 
stones, ... or to sink suddenly in spots of quicksand, ... in the 
awful solitude of the winter beaches, when tempest makes the 
heavens and the earth tremble.' When the United States called 
such trusty fishermen to be fishers of men from out the waves, it 
started upon one of its divinest missions. 

" The Life-Saviug St-rvice in action has well been portrayed in 
a number of Scnbner—l think it is the January number for 1880. 
' When I see a man cHuging to a wreck,' said a member of the 
Service ' I see nothing else in the world ; and I never think of 
family and friends until I have saved him.' Is not fhis the idtal 
of duty? As the superintendent reports of another son of the 
Service, ' The souls of such men as he have entered it, and it has 
become an incarnation.' 

" An eminent cardinal has remarked of what is virtually the same 
thing- the Coast-guard of England,— that it is the highest form 
of the truly heroic. 

"My chief purpose in forwarding these simple memoranda of 



12 allone's songs. 

a body of which every patriot citizen must be proud, is to call at- 
tention to some of the martyi's of the cause. Here is an extract 
from the report of 1881, in regard to the sad loss of the keeper 
and two of his crew, of Station No. 7, Second District, Cape Cod: 

" ' The surf -boat crew were left to an unassisted battle with the 
breakers. Their valiant effort to right the capsized boat failed. 
Repeatedly the monstrous force of the sea tore them from the bot- 
tom. Had it not been for the cork life-belts which sustained 
them, they must have almost instantly drowned ; but against the 
cold . . . they had no pi-otection ; and the closing scene shows 
their vital energies failing in the death-chill of tbe sea, three of 
their number gaining the beach, with their souls almost jiarted 
from their bodies, the remainder djing in the water, where their 
brave hearts froze.' 

" There is no fiction that is not beggared by such facts, that are 
in perfect contrast over against the heinous miscreants of murder 
and of plunder, of every ruse and of every desperation, to whom 
there is no law except their own will, and whose success must 
render order impossible. 

"This 'surf boat party,' as it is called in the report)-, is to me 
a worthy image of true Christianity, therefore. 'Uncle Sam's' 
life-savers are an open letter, known and read of all. Their en- 
thusiasm for humanity is no mere drama, no diplomacy of con- 
spicuous ambition. They are ignorant and unlearned, indeed, in 
much that is going on in the world ; but I believe in my heart of 
heart that of such is the kingdom of heaven. 

"These reports, that were kindly presented to me from the cen- 
tral office of Washington, have been a blessing to at least one. 
Time would fail me to collect even a fair exhibit of the facts that 
are stranger than fancy. They were read out in mid Atlantic, 
while the staunch old craft was ' chapeling ' in a troubled wilder- 



allone's songs. ' 13 

ness of elements, or signaling through an almost impenetrable fog, 
about the same time when our own sweet Longfellow's ' Excelsior' 
was sung to accompaniment in the dining-saloon, with inspiring 
effect, in a concert gotten up to aid the orphans of seamen. 

" Accept this poor memento. Peace to those watchmen of our 
home who 'died that others might live,' (Report for 1881, p. 74,) 
who put themselves, in the best sense, ' as dead men, for the 
greater glory of God,' into the power of more than heathen Nep- 
tune. I send you my greetings from my sunny lodging, that is 
neighbor to the Church of the Heavenly Altar and to the Capi" 
toline of the 'Eternal City.' 

^'January, 1885." 



Allone's Obeisance. 



IN answer to your prayer sincere, 
The centre of your circle here 
I stand; and, without taking thought, 
I speak to those profoundly taught — 

I knowing nothing. But I ken 
Full wtII your need — as you be men — 
This : Re-creation. With a bow, 
Then, your obedient servant now. 

One gift is all I find in me, 
And that is faithful memory; 



14 ALLONE S SONGS. 

I'll reproduce you- — echo you — 

Quite as poor slave, Blind Tom, w'd do. 

So Harmony's celestial sphere 
Of sympathy.^ — New worlds appear 
By night alone.- — I've heaven in view, 
Though I in darkness come to you. 

My sole professor has been love. 
And faith in One Supreme above; 
And thus my band for work prepares. 
My friends — for I am 

Yours — and theirs. 



Archangels' Hymn. 

"All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
Whose body nature is, and God the soul." 



Raphael. 

THE sun, as on his first creation. 
With brother spheres, his rival song 
Proclaims, while, by thine ordination. 
He moves, in thunder-tread, along. 



allone's songs. 15 

The angels, with new strength attended, 
Behold where thou dost searchings scorn ; 

The lofty works uncomprehended 
Are splendid as their primal morn. 



(tAP.RIEL. 

While, round about, the earth his glory 

Revolves, with wondrous, rapid flight, 
And brilliant day of Eden's story 

Still shifts with deep and awful night; 
Against their rocks the floods of ocean 

Foam, dashing each tide broad and deep ; 
Yet rocks and floods, with dizzy motion. 

On, in eternal orbit, sweep. 



Michael. 

In strife, the giant tempests lower; 

From shore to depths, from depths to shore. 
They rush, and throw one chain of power. 

With frantic wrath, earth's surface o'er. 
Along the pathways of the thunder. 

Thy lightnings, desolating, play; 
Yet, Lord, thine angels praise, in wonder, 

The placid courses of thy day. 



i6 



allone s songs. 

Choir. 
Thine angels, by new strength attended, 

Behold where thou dost searchings scorn; 
Thy lofty works uncomprehended 
Are splendid as their primal morn. 

—By ''Fritz: 



The ''Crusher'' Dude: a Photd. 

HAIL ho ! to each lass 
I'd have just a say of; 
So the moments I pass, 
Full of loves, not of love. 

'Twas Maude, and then Grace, 
And then Hope for a while; 

Devie then in her place, 
And then Precious's smile. 
Hail ho ! etc. 

From a lone, shady walk, 

With the trees clasped o'erhead, 

(So the village can't talk,) 

Back — heigh-ho ! the thing 's play'd. 
Hail ho ! etc. 



allone's songs. 17 

A beauty adore 

While you think on't, you know; 
Then be true, but no more — 
After her turn, let go. 
Hail ho ! etc. 

By Echo. 



A "-Rou^rk Lo^r 



CAREENING jauntily, fair-weather craft. 
Hugging the land, while flirting airs waft. 
Dances, ahoy ! till (Stormy comes ere ween'd), 
From figure-head to spanker, ' smithereened ' ! 
Her paint and ribbands cannot help her now. 
Nor all the gold that gilds, nor graceful bow. 
No life-boat (that " newfoundland " of the sea) — 
Nothing but a brilliant name hath she, 
And that soon disappears 'neath the tide. 
Woe when the laws of Stormy '-^ are defied ! 

^Our log-man was evidently thinking of the "Farmer's Bul- 
letin" of the Signal Oflfice, — that programme of stormy for our 
Uncle Sam's freehold. From Balletin of May 2, 1884: 

"General Laws Accompanying Weather Changes in the 
United States. 
" Weather changes affecting the locality in which this bulletin 



1 8 allone's songs. 

Sonnet 

On a Tableau representing " Coliii/ilna'''' as Pocahontas. 

THE background of a savage parliament 
Buried in smoke, upon the riverside, 
As rock the tan canoes upon the tide, 
Rises before me, as I view intent 
The virgin mediater heaven hath sent. 
With praying look and arms outstretching wide 
Across the Pale P^ace, now doth she preside 
Over the "painted tyrant" and his brent 
Circle of chieftains ! Mystery of love 
That saves from her own sire's wrath the form 
Tied hand and foot; for, blood-stained, is above 
The executioner's tomahawk ! The storm 
Of the red warriors is lulled ; and see ! 
At last the White Man, even, is set free. 

is posted generally appear first to the westward. An area of low 
barometer (storm-ceutre) generally moves slightly to the north of 
east ; an area of high barometer generally moves slightly to the 
south of east. In advance of a low barometer are generally found 
rain-winds and increasing cloudiness, with rain or f-now; in rear 
of a low barometer are generally found colder, dry winds, and 
clearing weather. 

" A comparison of the synopsis with the indications in this bul- 
letin, taken in connection with the local signs, will, at any hour, 
enable very useful forecasts to be made of anticipated changes in 
the weather." 



ALLONE*S SONGS. 1 9 

The Rose of Brettony. 

SAD Jamie, hind of Brettony, 
Whose hut his all must be. 
The canton's rose loved hopelessly, 

And housemaid Annie she ! 
And Annie beauty's climax capp'd, 
For Hymen's "civil contract" apt,"" 
Yet, rude, mock'd homely Jamie's love. 
And nothing was that she thought of 
But bagpipe shrill and country dance. 
Whose round the buoyant heart enchants. 
To pretty Annie, for, the ball 
Of holidays was heaven and all. 

Maid Annie wept upon a day ; 

The town its feast must hold ; 
And she was dying, she w'd say, 

Just for a cross of gold. 
Poor Jamie sells his lowly hut, 
And hastes away the price to put, 
In secret, in a golden cross 
For Annie — never mind the loss. 
At evening, to the bagpipe's note, 
She danced, the cross about her throat. 



Vivo a^to."— ViKGiii — Kep. 



20 ALLONE S SONGS. 

To pretty Annie, so, the ball 
Of holidays was heaven and all. 



Waiidcriiis, Jeiv. 

IFOR hardness at heart, 
^ Was with restlessness curst; 
Could my crimes but depart, 

Happy I as at first; 
To the Saver of men 
Gave I cruelty then. 

To the skullery bound. 

As he carried the stake, 
With a fatherly sound, 

Unto me the Man spake : 
"Friend, you'll grant me, foot-sore. 
Rest awhile at your door?" 

I, a rebel, a brute. 

Without reason at all, 
"Take your shadow," cried out, 

"Convict, off from my wall; 
Let us not y'r form see ; 
You're an insult to me." 



ALLONE's songs. 21 



Jesu, goodness itself, 

Smiling, said: "P>om this day 
And your god will be pelf, 

You must wander for aye; 
The Last Day only can 
End vour torments, O man." 



Cupido. 

CUPID'S an 'everlasting' child," 
Oft says mamma, I see, 
And adds, with her same manner mild, 

"Worse than a viper he." 
Now, I should like myself to know 
How a sheer child could injure so 
A shepherdess]^like me. 

'Twas yesterday that Cory don 
Went walking vvith Glycere; 

Right close, right softly they talk'd on. 
And he to her w'd peer; 

He praised a little god of charms, — 

The very god that so alarms 
The soul of mother dear. 



2 2 ALLONe's songs. 

To guess the puzzle, in some way 

To solve the mystery, 
I'll study, Colin, on a day. 

Our Poet, steadily; 
Supposing that he should turn wild. 
There will be two against one, child ! 

And no harm possibly. 

—By Echo. 



Our Captain. 

IF, with imcanny hands, we try 
Limn forth to-day His Excellency, 
An etch, a ' study,' of the man 
Is all we draw, nor more we can. 

We are as those with pick and spade 
Forerun the home that's to be made; 
The rubbish clear, the trenches lay, 
And then for others pass away. 

A sad, rude cast of clay at best- — 
A fading photo, we protest, 
But taken from the Ufe; maybe, 
A death-mask only offer we. 



allone's songs. 23 

A finer touch, a surer hand, 
An easier, ye shall command; 
And thus the work ! At foot of it 
Phidias and Raphael might sit. 

We be but sailors that explore, 
Discoverers of a distant shore; 
Pray, go ye in — possessors be. 
In name of Him who rules the sea. 

— Echo. 



The Rose-fj'ee. 



A TENDER plant, I marked it rise. 
Till birds came to 't from all the skies; 
At morn, beside my window-sill. 
They perch upon its twigs to trill. 

Ah ! happy birds, a loving band, 
For pity cease now; in far land. 
The lover of my heart doth live. 
He who the song to life did give. 

The promise of the new world drew 
Him from my side, to face death, too; 
But why search seas and regions round 
For joys that at home abound ? 



24 allone's songs. 

Ye wandering swallows, that again 
At every springtime seek our plain, 
O faithful travelers, each year 
Bring back with you to me my dear. 



The Three S^aj^es. 

MY children, long ago, I too 
Was fresh and innocent as you. 
And proi)er as I see you be; 
"Twas always springtime then to me. 
Like you, I loved the haj^py hours, 
'Mid sunny meads and rosy flowers; 
And in the dance, when taking part, 
I too knew how to charm a heart. 
So was I, little children, now 
That fifteen Springs had crossed my brow. 

Then, later on, (less mad, less glad,) 

I chose my mate, for good or bad ; 

His heart was mine, and came to bless — 

To love is such sweet happiness. 

At times, when dreamy and alone, 

I prayed to the Eternal One 



ALLONE S SONGS. 25 

To send an angel from above 
To love him with a mother's love. 
So was I, little children, now 
That thirty summers passed my brow. 

And later still — ah ! time must be, 

As waves are, that for ever flee; 

When winter comes in ice o'er men. 

How far away is summer then ! 

But, though Old Age may wear a crown 

Of pure white hairs, ere life is done. 

The heart, at least, cannot decay. 

That we to others give away. 

So am I, little children, now 

That fourscore years have crossed my brow. 



Echo at Bar. 



DO I act in defiance 
Of chastiser truth? 
Do I aim to burke science? 

A mysterio, sooth? 
The copyright moral 

Of men to their art 
3 



26 allone's songs. 

Do I cross, and the quarrel 

'Gainst plagiaries start? 
Nay ! nay ! our word on it — 

We are echo — that's all; 
And we claim not one sonnet, 

Not one thought, big or small. 
We sing "catches," faint "catches," 

Of the voice of Hfe's sea; 
' Since you'll have it so, snatches 

Of song. Such are we. 



Coliiis Love. 



A SMOCK white as snow, 
A shepherdess' hood ; 
Then a floweret or so, 

Gathered out of the wood — 
And nature everywhere will 
Make the fair fairer still. 
Ah ! such is her fashion 
Who hath won my soul's passion. 

Fancy you that my fair 
Can be made yet more rare 
By your laces, by gems 
Picked from earth's diadems, 



ALLONE S SONGS. 27 

Or a "body" of frill 

Show her daintier still? 

Nay, nay, maids; the thoughts are 

Illusion and snare. 

A smock white as snow, 

A shepherdess' hood; 
Then a floweret or so, 

Gathered out of the wood — 
And natiwe everywhere will 
Make the fair fairer still. 
Ah ! such is her fashion 
Who hath won my soul's passion. 



The Stor7/L 



D 



^ARK is the day and inhuman 
The hurricane blast, 
That spares neither man nor woman, 
In iciness roaring past — 
The furious, bigoted demon wind, 

That shouts in pride, "Ye have sinned, have sinned !" * 
Now rise in rebelHon the waters; 
Old ocean is angry now; 

" "Causa teterrima belli." 



28 allone's songs. 

Like a Titan breathing his slaughters, 
To heaven he Hfts his black brow; 
Against the mighty clouds he hurls his might — 
The tyrannic sulphurous clouds take flight. 

"Away, ye clouds, superstitious, infernal!" 

Cries ocean, in thunder prolonged, 
While heaven his lightning supernal 
Still dashes down over the wronged, 
Now unruly waters; wild dread is the fray 
Of ocean with heaven ; oh ! maniac day ! 

Now wanes the high tempest, for ocean 

Is conquered ; his thunders grow low ; 
His reverberate growl of emotion 
Dies o'er the horizon, deep, slow. 
Behold ! thro' the clouds bursts the rational sun ; 
The ship rides in triumph; the victory's won. 



Jesii is my Keeper. 

JESU, he is Keeper — 
He is Saver still, 
Wilder tho' and deeper 

Grow the sea of ill. 
He, the offing scanning. 
Throws the life-lines out, 



ALLONE S SONGS. 29 

Bravely his work manning, 

Snatching man from doubt. 
Jesu, he is Keeper — 

Trust the life to him; 
Tho' one now be weeper, 

Eyes with woe's brine dim. 
In love's life-boat landed, 

Fear not — storm or night; 
Sin's old craft is stranded; 

On to'rds home and light. 



[For bas-is of following story, see imprrtant article which ap- 
peared in Century while yet that magazice had its maiden name, 
anent a Second-Sight as invented and practised by one Max, a 
Polack, a "wandering" Jew; the secret of whose "miracles," as 
he in a sense truly called them, confounded everyone till he 
chose to reveal a modus operandi which would have done credit 
to Bar-jesus himself.] 



MAX, 

The Blind See)- of Poland. 



Masks of the Mask. 
Cabala, Aged Oracle ; a Pythoness. 

Max, Polish Jew; diviner; augui-er; apostle of Cabala. 

WiTCHA, Fortnne- teller, and player of sleight-of-tongiie. 

Wizard, Reporter of New World ; a " body " politic. 

Speites,__ Machinery Gods ; Voices of Airs (" dii ex machina'''). 

John Bull, Top-man. 

Jesuits ; Lemur : Rustics ; Donkey, etc. 

Time, The Present. 

Place, The Old World. 



Argument. 
Doting Cabala, a mysterious Anchorite, dwelling in the heart of forest, 
finding death to be fast approaching, goes forth at dusk from her cavern, 
(which winds among the roots of the timber,) and bids her Elves to summon 
her apprentice Max, who has hitherto been used to attract the people by leger- 
demain, and then to harangue them in speeches learnt by heart from Cabala, 
the failing Pythonist. She delivers to him her papyrus scroll, and tells him 
go study, while she returns to watch her vestal fire. As he is puzzling over 
the i^apyrus, the Elves come and teach him to read, in return wherefor, 
though, he is struck with perpetual blindness. Cabala's changeling, Witcha, 
appears, to be his guardian angel amid the darkness. Meanwhile the ancient 
Oracle has died ; therefore the twain start upon their mission as successors 
of Cabala. They begin in Poland, and next are seen upon the stage in Asia, 
at the base of the Caucasus. Here they meet Wizard, reporter of the New 
World ; he loves Witclia : and so the melodrama closes with trysting scene, 



31 



Scene I. Tivilight in wildeniess. 
Enter Sprites, flying, singing. 
1ST Sprite. Well met, fays! 
2ND Sp. But what's y'r name? 
3RD Sp. It is, it is — all the same 
1ST Sp. What is in a name? they say. 
2ND Sp. All that's in a word. 
3RD Sp. Eh, eh ! 

1ST Sp. Words, with this or that hue made, 

Lizard-like in sun or shade. 
2ND Sp. All depends upon the light. 
3RD Sp. You are right; oh! you are Right. 
1ST Sp. I believe that it will rain. 
2ND Sp. I believe it won't- — again ! 
3RD Sp. I don't know what I believe. 

It is true, I grieve, I grieve. 
1ST Sp. Don't believe what you don't know. 
2ND Sp. Ah! you can't; I'll show, I'll show. 
3RD Sp. I believe that I don't know. 
1ST Sp. It is so; oh ! it is so. 
The Three. What is in a name? they say. 
All thafs in a word, eh, eh 1 

Enter Cabala, o?i cmtc/i. 
Cabala. What ! spirits of the breath, so soon 
Veering in the horned moon? 



32 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

1ST Sp. Does it wane, or does it wax? 
Cab. That will now depend on Max. 
2ND Sp. lAside.^ As with sun at Ajalon? 
3RD Sp. With the magic orb be't done! 
Cab. For a Jew can, at his will, 

Say to sun or moon. Be still. 
1ST Sp. So can I, upon my word! 
2ND Sp. But a sphere hath never heard. 
3RD Sp. You may say it without end; 
I'his is a free country, friend. 
The 1'hree. You may say it without end ; 

Po'land's a free country, friend. 
Cab. Bids the Jew the magic cease; 
Then will lunacy decrease; 
For in Georgia thus, 'tis said, 
Mooning myriads are made. 
1ST Sp. Thus it is that women there 

Better than their husbands are; 
While the house-wives house-work ply, 
Men are gazing at the sky ! 
2ND Sp. Georgia the fair-ladied ! '* 

*■* Georgia in Asia, at the foot of the fabled Caucasus, has ever 
been known for the ideal beauty of its women. Indeed, the 
Georgian generally has been pronounced by travellers as the hi^-h- 
est type of Aryan physique. Living, as they do, in the shadow, if 
not practically under the wing of Turkey, they, of course, are by 
no means patterns of " the inner man." — Hep. 



33 

3RD Sp. Higher ! 

There ' Prometheus ' stole the fire. 
The Three. There Prometheus stole- — the fire ! 
Cab, And the Eagle 'fired' at liver. 
I ST Sp. So doth fate reward a giver. 
Cab. It depends upon the liver. 
Three Sprites. So doth fate reward a giver; 
It depends- — upon the /l7'er. 
Cab. Hush, Ariels ! hush y'r idling. These be times of 
toils. Go fetch me the green Pole. My old and faithful 
trio, invisibly suggest to him my wanting him. I'll 'stick' 
this very stick. 

1ST Sp. Screw your courage (there's a joint!) 

To the — to the — sticking point. 
The Three. To the- — to the- — 'sticking' point! 

\Exe21ut Spi^ites. 
Cab. While I crawl and fetch my sealed scroll of Ora- 
cles : they find it obscure who know not the ways of love. 
Speed you, speed you, my good trinity — Come, crutch ; I 
am at last a lean and withered hag; "old as the hills," so 
giddy school-girls mock their nurses. Conie, crutch; I 
need thy good supporting, humble cross. \^Exit Cabala. 
Scene II. Grotto of Cabala. 
Enter The Three Sprites. 
Sprites. Mistress ! we have sought y'r man 
Far and near, as well as can; 



34 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Went where on divans were curled 

Undines of the under world, 

Fair or ebon they, or yellow. 

As they lay supine or mellow; 

Went where, like the Book on shelf, 

Buries he or she oneself 

In the silent cloister cell, 

Where each bell-stroke seemed a knell, — 

And where not ? but found him ne'er, 

Till upon a sea-shore drear, — 

Fishing not the finny band. 

But the drowning on dry-land ! 

\Exennt Sprites^ courtesying, aloft. 
\_ Cabala rising and holding forth in the dark an oii-tojxh, 
leaning on a s hep herd's crook. The scroll at her feet. ] 
Max. \_To Imnself as he gazes.'] 

O mother Cabal ! in y'r deep sunk eye. 
The embers of y'r fascination glow. 
Cab. Max, you are a know-nothing quite — 

Small Latin, and less Greek, and no Hebrew. 
Max. I am a Hebrew, though, dame Cabala. 
Cab. Hold ! I did mean you were an Israelite 
Indeed, in whom I never did find guile. 
I took you up, you know, a fisherman, 
Unlettered in the snakiness of "truth." 
Max. Adders sh'd have the flesh whipp'd from th'r bones. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 35 

Cab. The nets you cast were of the concrete sort, 

And the cold-blooded that you mesh'd were fish. 

Max. [ Quizzing?^ They say that fish is A i '' for the brain, 
"A I at Lloyd's," as is my gallant craft. 

-'Note. — "A, 1." — "'A, 1' at Lloyd's" is a common British 
proverb for whatever is excellent. "A, No. 1," we often say in 
the United States. It, as is well known, originated in ship-in- 
spectors designating craft as " A, ' or "B," or " C," etc., accord- 
ing to merit; and so super-excellence was reported as "A, 1." 

Max, being a Hebrew, is no doubt alluding to the strange pen- 
chant of his tribe to attribute supernatural significance by nume- 
rals and letters. 

Thus the 276 of Acts xxvii. 37 has been interpreted to mean 
"Caesar," or "Nero," or possibly both, according to the nuaieri- 
cal power of the letters in Hebrew or Aramaic at the time when 
that ship is supposed to have been wrecked " by the violence of 
the waves." 

The familiar case of Rev. xiii. 18 is an old puzzle. "There's 
hick in odd numbers," says the silly by-word; in contrast to 
which we are reminded of the pretty French song, 

" So if it tnie's joy goes by two?," 
of a single man. 

"All one" is an ordinary phrase for "all right." Then, may- 
be the superstitious Max meant to imply something hke " A' one," 
(as the Scotch say,) for the name of his dogger-boat. ... To say 
the least of it, anyhow, "All one" is certainly a case in which 
"extremes meet." . . . What's in number? The wolf doesn't 
care how many the sheep be. "The more the merrier.*' Equally 
absurd the ancient tendency to augur by sheer numerals. How- 



36 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Cab. \_ReJ>rovlfig.~\ None are so blind as t?iose who will 
not see. 

Max. I see ! I see 1 

Cab. Know, Max, that such as you 

Are the salt of the earth. 

Max. The "salts," my mother; 

For we 're a sailor stock." 

Cab. That ruddy cheek 

That ocean airs have sweethearted so with 

Disclaims the sad infections of the mob, 

And honest ways of you bespeak a breast 

That dogma's dry-rot hath not touch'd. Thus far 

I have but used you. Without scrip or purse. 

You went into the city, and entic'd 

The mass to have their fortunes told to them. 

They were the blind fish of my mammoth cave. 

"Entic'd," I say; for you went by my sight, 

And this did I. 

ever, the power of a name is shown in the fondness (for one cause 
or another) of ship companies for the name Lloyd (at whose office 
ships used to be registered in England). "The North-German 
Lloyd" and the " Austro-Hungarian Lloyd" are famous lines of 
steamships. And "Lloj'd's" is still noted among the craft of 
crafts — an office "known like a book "in "famous London town." 
—Rep. 

" I believe he rejoiced in the — lock jawing— patronymic of Litz. 
ched. — Hep. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 37 

Max. \_Looking a?'Oiind kirn.'] Then, mother, where am I? 

Cab. [ G7'itting7\ I '11 let you know. 

This is, my heart-pangs' son ! 
The mouth of an infinite labyrinth. 
The catacombs of Paris and of Rome 
Are but mole-burrowings compared to mine. 
I have the clew; I'll let you have 't anon. 
Ah ! as I stand and hold this beacon up, 
Adown an endless o'er-arched stairway seems 
My light to cast its resurrecting ray. 

Max. So shines a good deed in a naughty world. 

Cab. Max, the whole world's in a Python's folds! 
The circling monster mesmerizes flesh; 
His eye is on the genus homo^ and 
That Retina doth photograph mankind, 
And is the cozening mirror that betrays 
As, in the fable, the dog's shadow did. 
But to sum up y'r life. 

You were a babe 
And suckling. You believed it gospel all ! 
Well done, my good and faithful servant. Now, 
Then, enter into y'r reward. No more 
I claim y'r service. I dismiss you forth. 

Max. [ Weepi7ig7\ No, no, my veriest mother ! 

Cab. As y'r faith 

Was questionless, the monkey still in man 



38 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Aped what you said; and by y'r flatteries, 

You tickled them to make of you a seer. 

Wise prophet he that mouthpieces men's hopes ! 
Max. Then — have you played with me at Hoodman 

Bhnd? 
Cab. Nay; I have caught you with the tricks of love. 

Son, shudder not; I speak in parable. 

I (that am "truth") have set my cap for you. 

Enter First Sprite. 
Cab. Sh ! sh ! Ho, Abba ! why alone at eve ? 
Sp. The other twain 
Do work amain 

In parlors thro' the city; 
In lovers' ears 
The hopes and fears 

Of life they sing in ditty : 
"It might have been, 
It might have been, 

But was not — what a pity ! " 
Max. [Starting^ Whence is this voice? What be 

these fairies, grandam? 
Cab. Fata Morgana. 
Max. That is Greek to me. 
Cab. "Unto one of the least of these, unto Me." 
Max. Y'r commentary, as says sailor lingo, 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 39 

Is " double Dutch, and coiled against the sun." 
You're puzzling a§ 'the sailor's mystic song'; 
Unfold the Log'-Book of y'r signs. 
Cab. I will : 

You ask what is it that is in the air; 
The spirit that is men's remembrancer— 
What with y'r holden eyes you cannot see. 
I'he story that I told you was a blind. 
Sp. It might have been, it might have been, 

But was not — what a pity ! 
Max. I see ! I see ! 
Cab. Off at a tangent, eh ? 

So be it, tho'; for I have sown the seed. 
It was a blind ; let me remove the blind. 
Shy not ! but keep y'r eyes within y'r head. 
Sp. Fortune is a fiction, friend ; 

Conceit itself, and without end; 

Fancy's dearest son. 
If his failures sh'd be told, 
Not the world itself could hold 
What he has not done. 
Max. I see! I see! The steam-engine's a fiction. 
Cab. Most true; a composition, copyrighted, 

And labelled : " Damn'd be he that adds to it ! " 
Proved to have been revealed to Watt alone, 
Quite perfect and entire — monopoly. 



40 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Max. He adds not to, who reproduces man ; 

And reproduction proves virility. 
Sp. Change the weather ! make it warm 

For the workers of the charm. 
Cab. Maximus, I see that not in vain 
I found you and initiated you. 
Schooled by the rough waves of experience, 
You yet have had a compass from my crypt. 
Max. One truth, you said, was as a rising sun, 

lb which your art was but as morning-star. 
The fact of this United States hath taught 
Better than have the universities,— 
Better than have the systems and the books.^ 
That is, then. Teacher. There in other form 
The Son of Man is manifested; other 
Only in robe — to the eye's eye the same 
Yesterday, for ever, as to-day, 
The everlasting gospel of the truth. 
Cab. The robe of history is never old. 

You have been an apt scholar, little Max: 
To say the least of lessons you have learnt. 
You like to give examples of a rule. 
Word-worshipers sh'd be in penitentiary. 
Max. Stripe-clad like wasp, and head-shaved Hke monk. 

* An echo of a saying of one of those preddential men, the 
Adamses. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 



41 



Cab. So, then, you've profited within my gi-otto. 
{Re-enter Sprites, st7iging the kyj?m. "Silent night, mysti- 
cal night," etc., a7id then die away. Cabala falls asleep. 
Exit Max.^ 

Scene III. Sun up. 
Enter Max, knocking at the Grotto. Cabala appears. 
Max. I'he dews of grace upon thee, ancient Vestal. 
Cab. Heaven's morrow unto you, my Max. We've 
met 
After scarce time eno' for shifting scenes. 
Yet I have dozed. 
Max. And I have dreamt my dream. 

It was an old, old dream of sleep-walking. 
Cab. And yet y'r eyes were open. 
Max. a bHnd seer. 

Cab. Son, I deliver up this sibyl scroll. 

Until shall come my date of openness, 
Guard with angelic honor this, my trust. 
Dread (as the fairies dreaded Demogorgon. 
Ere I was disenslaver) to forestall me. 
Take it, and use it (like a bayonet-sword), 
When you shall have the news that I am dead. 
Tho' of much part of it I owe to say 
'Tis poetry of neither rime nor reason 
Upon the surface, yet between the Imes 
4 



42 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Read ! and what prose is there ! Take it, then^ 

Max, 
And ply it, in the heart and thick of fight, 
Against the savage dastards of the dark. 
The hireHng crusaders of the west, — 
Ghouls that hope still to blast home — and burke 

God- 
Pest- friends that boycott Jesus ! Take it, son, 
This papyrus that heaven's reporters wrote \ 
Ay, I will tell it thee, with their own blood. 
History is the life of God : it is summed up 
With character the Called alone decipher 
In this old record of the Son of Man, — 
Love's old, old story always new. Leave me 
To trim anew my torch of olive-oil, 
And to thy hermitage repair and study 
My book, and go when thou hast learned to read, 
And read aloud to all ! 

And so love truth 
With love whose life's a honeymoon. 

My new-born, 
Begin to study; ay, be "dead in love;" 
Then, with y'r eyes oped, come to see me. 
And ere I die I '11 to thee give my torch too — 
Which thou shalt hand on to thy spirit's heir, 
And he to other, and so on forever. \_Exeunt. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 43 

Enter a band of Peasants, la if k farming implements, etc. 
1ST Peasant. Hist ! here, they say, resides the Crooked 
Ogre: 
Yon is the rock she touches with her 

staff. 
And up it springs — 
2ND Peas. As Sesame knew its name. 

1ST Peas. Woodmen in horror whisper they have seen 
her 
Winding along with eye Hke will-o'-wisp ; 
And swear her glance is like a lightning flash 
And blasts whate'er it strikes. 
Peasant Girl. When comes It out? 

1ST Peas. She never shows her form save after sundown. 
2ND Peas. Many declare 'tis but an old wife's fable, 

Hatch'd by the hearth at ember-tide; and 

liken 
This "he" called Cabala to the sea-serpent. 
Peas. Girl. I do believe in it. Some say that Max 
Follows the weazen Hornie to her cave. 
Peas. Matron. In sooth as I have heard him, oft me- 
tho't 
He knew things that he had no busi- 
ness with. — 
But we are safe while it is open day. 
1ST Peas. Some say this is the Seven Sleepers' cave, 



44 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

For which the sun alters his course twice 
daily, 

So as to chase the vampires from the vaults; 

And well may Cabala seek such a haunt. 
2ND Peas. And who shall cut the j/ig'/ars of the vampire ? 
1ST Peas. What's that? 

2ND Peas. This lying — for God's sake ! 

Peas. Mat. Oh! I adore a coloss'us* lie. 
1ST Peas. I don't beheve that Cabala's a he. 
Peas. Mat. Nor I. I do not worship her. She's cross, 

They say, as setting hen. 
1ST Peas. Or poet spinster, 

Or politician that has lied for nothing. 
2ND Peas. 'Tis bad to be for nothing good. But come ! 

We're talking under influence of the Hornie. 

I almost see her crouch'd behind the rock. 
\_Exeunt^ singi?7g gaily. 

Enter two students, on an outing ; sitting on the rock. 
1ST Student. "Quem vocet divum imperi mentis 

Populus rebus?" 
2ND Stud. An echo answers : "Rebus!" 

1ST Stud. In sooth a rebus. 
2ND Stud. And an omnibus. 

1ST Stud. Let's run a 'bus — a patent omnibus! 

^ One reporter has taken it down ' ' colossian. " — -Ed. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 45 

2ND Stud. I see that you believe in copy-right. 

1ST Stud. I b'lieve in copying, so it's done right. 
There cannot be in these days patented 
A god — that patent any may add to. 

2ND Stud. If men could only see from out their eyes ! 

1ST Stud. I'd only add to 't that it should be — patent. 

2ND Stud. " Omnibus rebus ! " 

1ST Stud. By all means. 

2ND Stud. Is y'r motto. 

Surely the truth — is no — creed's private car- 
carriage. 
— What's that you're reading? 

1ST Stud. Pardon! in the "New Birth," 

Sent me from Athen, quite a queer pro- 
gramme, 
In honor of old Greece's "palingenesia." 

2ND Stud. The resurrection (as 'tis said) of Hellen. 

1ST Stud. Out from the grave — of slavery and Turkey ! 

2ND Stud. So are the States still buried down in Mor- 
mon. 

1ST Stud. There is the grave of God in history. 

2ND. Stud. The grave of God. 

1ST Stud. The grave of hope divine — 

Thou by thine agony and bloody sweat. 
And by thy passion, cross, and burial, 
And by thy glorious resurrection, God ! 



46 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

2ND Stud. Ay, we are saved by hope. 
1ST Stud. Anchor of the soul. 

\^Exeunt^ singhig the college-song: "Studentes sunt ama- 
biles," etc. They prepare their guns\ 

Note. — Demogorgon — i. e., * ' People-petrifier. " The other ety- 
mology, of "demou-gorgon," is, to say the least of it, tautologi- 
cal. This divinity of the dark ages is alleged to have had his 
throne amid the summits of Himalaya ; and we are told that pnets 
have even feared to pronounce his name. Milton mentions 

"The dreaded name 
Of Demogorgon." 

The o^her spelling of this strange god's name (in the Greek) is, 
of course, the^prevailing one, but, in our humble opinion, is no 
more the original than is "Jehovah" of " Jahveh." 

Demogorgon, to be sure, dates back further than the dark ages ; 
yet he may likely be specified as having only been born of anti- 
quity. The history of this dark, shadowy body is 

"Like the cloud-shapen Giant 
That bestrides the Hartz mountains." 

But, no doubt, like that phenomenon, he was simply a reflection 
aloft of what was going on in obscuration in the valleys far below. 
Something like this thought may be easily inferred from the fact 
that he was despotic master of the fairies — those miniature fates, 
in reality. He seems to have subsided somewhat, as did Mephis- 
topheles at the sight of the cross, — "Mephist -pheles," by the 
way, being another illustration how GJ-reek names, like this same 
'* dsemogorgon," (and, indeed, like that ApoUyou, the "Kuklux," 
that so long lorded it below Mason and Dixon's Line,) as well as 
Greek ideas, become corrupted. —Rfp. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 47 

Note. — Folio vviug is likiily the very programme referred to by 
our student. — Rep. 

[Mark the Greek's bad priutiug-tbe slips of the Sous of the 
Type!] 



A E K ATI A 



^' E/.ro.y.ro'^ Hayrjyupt/.Yj IlapdrFram'^ 
JidT7j'>i<T-ipa'^T/j(T(horipa'^^ 25 Mapriou, 1885 



To diazpir^ " Ear at Ir^p.at()(7~<'>Ai<TT()'> /.at Mof>zu(7T(fAt(TT<>v 

Mip<><^ r/pajTO'^ 

I K r A A A 

Apapa TOO dtti^o'poo I. BAIIAEIAAOYet^ ppaEtt^ 4. 

Ba(nksh<s N'cffo? Aexdrfrag 

Mipo'^ Asorspo'^ 

TO XA NITIIIFP A B I A I 

[Jotrjp.a ZaXo/.cotjTa d~ayyi?Mrj(76p.z'><>u und A. Boup^ooptcoroo 

3Iipi)<^ rpiroy 

H 9 Till NYKTOI 

hwpwdia TzpojTOTUTco? et? p.ia'^ ~pdEtv. 

una Eoayy. lla'^To-ooXoo, ^^rj? dtddfrxszat dtd Tzpojrry^ (popd'y. 



48 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

EI(T(>du^ fj.£zd y.aOtff/j.a-o^ (TUfiTre/HAa/jMa^o/iivou xa\ 

TOO (fopou dp 2,20 

E'L(T()8i)^ /.. X. a'EtcDiiarixu)'^ " 1,50 

" 6zo)pstu)v " IjSO 

" 'Trzspwou XsTzrd 80 

Oi k'^o'^re': £'t(Tod<)v Oswpetcov ttaipyovrat dxioXbrw^ e^V rd r^c 

Etmzrjpia -loXoZr^zat d-d -pco{a<^ tv rw xa(p(pevt[ii)ZA XA PA TOY 
■Kpuj'rjv Tffoya^ -apd rd Xaorela. "Apyezat tyjV g p.. p.. 



Prelude to Canto II. 
Morning T^vilight. 
Enter The Three Northern Fates. Max /;/ study. 
The Three. [ Chanting.'] Hail ! 
First. I am the eldest Nor'n, 

Hauntress of the glimm'ring morn. 
Second. And am I the middle onej 
My time is the present sun. 
Third. I, the latest born, at eve 

Come on duty. 
First. Soon to leave, 

(For the darkest hour is ceased, 
And that crack that streaks the east 
Signals me, a wee time more, 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 49 

And my sentry will be o'er,) 
Quick I say ttiat we with pride 
Have your inmost thoughts descried. 
Hark ! I hear your thrumming heart ; 
Calm you now, and do not start. 
Much the labor will be praised; 
Raise the stock, and each is raised." 
Yours it is to make men fair, — 
Show what ugly ways are their ; 
And how truth's is to begin 
Working outward from within. 
Max. Who be you, in whose sharp eyes 
Mortal, as an hour-glass, lies 
Thus to be looked through? 
Second. And told 

When his hour is out. 
First. [Speeds away ; to the others^ Unfold ! 
Second. Man, we are your fates of old ; 
Steel you now to hear the word 
That in scripture you have heard. 
Third. Perish Craft, or justice must. 
Second. Listen, child of heat and dust. 
Max. Utter ! my long-unspared ear 
Now can any message hear. 

'' "Sublato genere, tollitur et species." 



5° MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Third. Torn and tainted by the strife, 
Death already shififs y'r Hfe; 
You that have been man of war 
See the temple, but from far; 
Other, softer, hands shall build 
Noiselessly, 
Max. Be it fulfilled ! 

Third. See a frigate, her whose form 
Weathered lightly every storm, 
Suddenly, in gallant plight, 
Founder in mid-ocean's sight. 
So I draw the horoscope 
Of great Babel, hell's own hope. — 
But the sun goes up ; the field. 
Sister, {to the Second,'] unto you I yield. 
Jewster, we shall meet again 
At the end. {Hastes off. 

Max. And welcome then. 

Second. Son, until the eventide 

Of this day, closer at your side 

I remain; but, in full light 

Of the sun, I fade from sight. 

Ere I go, remember, dear, 

Tho' unseen, that I am near; 

Soldier, in the battle stand. 

Like a snowball in the hand, 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 5 I 

Shall the fable melt. We four 
Meet at midnight. [ Vanishes. 

Max. \_SIeeJ>s.'] Then, 'tis o'er? 



Canto II. 
Scene I. Max at his retreat in the desert, poring over the 

scroll. 
Enter, above, the fairies, Abba, Bathcol, and Rucha, — 
yet invisible to him. 
Max. \J^ea(lingr\^ " Beware of men " — 

Voice. For they are beasts of prey. 

Max. {^Starts. \ What now? 

Voice. I 'm echo, fated Wandering Jew. 

Max. Of what? 
Voice. The very Voice that's there writ down. 

My name is "daughter of the Voice" — Bathcol; 
My doom is by tradition to repeat 
Along the ages what 't were vain to write. 
Consider how love-letters oft kill love. 
And learn how words in black and white — 
Max. Breed schism. 

Voice. So, when men say, "Write to us," say — 
Max. I write not ! 

Voice. "Carnivorous creatures feed on one another. 
Antagonism is the law of life. 



52 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Resistance is the secret of survival." 
'Tis the old tale of Python and — his quarry. 
Max. Ah! now I see the inspiration oft; 

" Words are intended to conceal thought " ; they 're 
At best the virile toga of fierce fate. 
They are the wooing dress that hides the serpent ! 
I thank thee, unseen mentor. 
Voice. Think and thank, 

For you might study until you were green; 
But I alone, the spirit, do reveal. 
Max. Then wisely mother Cabal bade me study, 

And then sent thee — 
Voice. To prove the difference. 

Therefore we three call thee fated Wandering 
Jew. [^They show themselves. 

Max. I see you, and y'r name is love ! 
The Three. Enough. [ They vanish. 

Max. Mother, I 've read ! [^Spirits seize the scroll. 

Voice. She's dead. You have the torch. 

The antidote of poison secret. Lo ! 

[Max is struck stone bli?id7\ 

Voice. Man, you are doomed to everlasting night. 
Max. I see! I see! 

The Sprites. \^Singingr\ ''I see," the blind man said; 
"I see," the blind man said. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 53 

Enter Witcha, a Gypsy girl, dressed as a rainbow. 
Max. One thinks of angels, and one hea.rs the rustling. 
'Tis midday, and the sun shoots at the Nadir; 
Yet here I am — 
Sp. Eclipsed ! 

Max. What go between? 

Witcha. \^Aside.'] A reader of men and women — by 
torch-light. 
I am the mystic flame of life made flesh — , 
\_Ahmd,'] A Gypsy from the crypt of Cabala. 
The fairies buried her in labyrinth, 
Where she awaits, as looking to the Maker, 
Her resurrection in her child. 
Max. Amen. 

May sleepless spirits guard the labyrinth grave, — 
But sure you are a godsend, little Palmer ! 
Witcha Give me y'r hand; 't may have the "cipher" $. 
Sp. 'Tis time to show y'r hand; 
'Tis time to show y'r hand. 
Max. Then, here's my palm, fair page. 
Witcha, Upon y'r left palm is an N' ; no, M ; 

Upon y'r right, old-fashioned W ! 
Sp. Let not the "left" know what the right is doing. — 
And thereby hangs a tale, 
And thereby hangs a tale. 
Max. I'll clap my hands; and so a monogram ! 



54 MAX, THE BLIND SEER, 

Sp. a wedding-invitation: "Max and Witcha!" 
Max. Cease haggling, spritely beings. 
Witcha. Ah ! 

I see the W is but two V's crossed. 
Max. Into a -|-? Witcher, I am non-plused. 
Witcha. I hope not. Max. 
Max, Maybe the M is Monk. 

Sp. Nay; 'tis Spencerian handwriting for "Monkey." 
Max. I pray you, soothsayers, go not backwards ! 
Witcha. So, Max, you see I 'm teaching you your letters. 
Max. Rare thing to be a man of letters - patent. 

'Tis God's handwriting, not on walls — on man ; 
And, oh ! how it inverteth history ! 
Witcha. Max, I am come to be y'r cicero. 

As we go hand in hand through this black 

world. 
I have the clew. \_Holding two united balls of 
thread of India rubber. They start out. 

Note. — The '"Grypsies" {i. e., "Egyptians") are another illus- 
tration how there may be nothing in a name. 

They are not Egyptians at all, as was once taken for granted, 
but are Indians -real Indiaus, — that is to say Aryans. However, 
they may be also called "Indians" in the American sense gene- 
rally, if we may adopt Webster's definition, who, under the head 
of '"Gypsy," says: "... a vagabond race . . . living by theft, 
fortune-telling, horse-jockeying, tinkering, and the like." Tin- 
kering ought to be a respectable calling (though, are they and 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 55 

Scene II. Outskirts of Uiikno'ivji Village. 
Enter Max, Witcha leading him by the hand. 
Max. Rainbow, I 've learnt y'r language. 

Witcha. So now you see me with y'r iris vain. 
Max. Ah ! as y'r scarf was wafted o'er my hand, 
I told its colors with that subtle sense 

plumbers rarely "plumb"?). Maybe tinkers are like "John, 
John, the piper's son," of nursery fame. 

The '"Gypsies," therefore, are likely the nearly spent one of 
those con-centric ludo-Furopean waves of migration which have, 
in the course of time, inundated Europe and America, and bid 
fair to overspread the lands, 

" As the waters cover the sea." 
The happiest phrase that Macaulay ever used in verse is : 
"The Gypsy, Poetry." 

Indeed, there is a kind of poetic justice in still calling our 
primeval Nomads by the conjuring name Egyptian; in naming, 
christening them after the Copt. These archetypal tramps, these 
unbaptized foresters, living by their wits, (as the saying is,) are 
no inapposite namesake of the Sphinx-like Semite, who wrote in 
hieroglyphics, and earned a livelihood by what law now declares 
to be "false preteises," and "having no visible means of sup- 
port." 'Gypsy lore is a thing that the Ithuriel spear of Induction 
soon reveals to be vacuous nothing Longfellow, in his "Span- 
ish Student," gives us some nice hints of 'Gypsy life. Yet Poesy, 
the 'Gypsy queen of arts, might be named "Kosetta"; for 
(though to the eye as nothing as a ghost) she is still the great in- 



56 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

The seers of this world can never have. 
Eyes have they, but they see not. Color-bUnd 
Are many who imagine that they see. 
Daughter, I once was bhnd, but now I see ! 
The orb of "outward sense," though all ecHpsed, 
A new sight is born in me, to transcend 
The glorious vast of nature. Now mine eyes 
Are shut upon the world, by faith, \J)owi7ig to his 

guide ^ not sight, 
I walk. Dovie, the birds have fed the martyr. 

WiTCHA. The Swan of Avon and the Secretary Bird? 

Max. Where hast thou seen these, child? In the mu- 
seum? 

WiTCHA. No; they are in the air. 

You've learnt my language? 

Max. You shift the meanings of the common words. 
By permutation, too, of accents, tones. 
You have at last built up a book of sounds, 
Whereto the lordly Webster seems abridgment. 
It needs the memory of rhapsodist 
To con such; but, that granted, all's plane sailing. 
You ask a question, and involve the answer. 

terpreter— the rock upon which the verbal air castles (to speak 
in paradox) of credos are builded ; and her immortal soul is 
that transporter, that transfigurer, of so-called real life — the im- 
agination. — Re'p. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 57 

WiTCHA. So have we a strange tongue shall non-plus e'en 

The learned Orthodox/^ 
Max. To the market place 

We '11 go, and practise sleights of second-sight ! 
We'll show New World by spirit's thaumaturgy. 
WiTCHA. A sphere where Caghostro is no 'count 
Max. Dovie, I translate thee to "Columbia"! 
Sprites. [_Siri£^i/i^^.^ Be the wise serpent and the harm- 
less dove; 
Be clever — in a word that both Worlds love. 
Refrain. — Be the serpent and the dove; 

Oh ! be clever — that's my love ! 
Max. The fays do shadow our way — dog it all ! 

' And so we god the Lorelie of song. 
Sprites. \_Si}iging?^ And that has been done by the 
singing 
Of the song of the Lorelie ; 
And that has been done by the sing-ing 
Of the song of Lore-lie. 
Max. Rainbow, at best words utter us but poorly; 

Hardly do fleeting breaths tell what's immortal. 
Then, oh ! what cruelty to shape those words 
Into a shibboleth t' enslave men's minds, 

« The Greek Church (of Russia, etc.,) styles itself "The Ortho- 
dox."— i?6j9. 

5 



58 MAX, THE BLIND SEER, 

And gag th'r mouths, and bloodhound them with 

priestcraft ! 
Dovie, I weary of an endless echo 
Of foreign gibberish. Undefiled English, 
For instance, slighted in her castle Home, 
Languishes while men go whoring in heart 
After a rotten carcass of the ancients. 
Ah ! mother Cabala love's holy chrism 
Watched till at last it leavened into you, 
Who, thus born out from nature's mystic cavern. 
Shine ! life's elixir ! christal of the times. 
The price of peace is war ; of pleasure, pain. 
'Tis history's end, by labor exquisite. 
To bring forth truths; to add all up in One; 
By infinite ascension, build to God, 
Condensing oft the unseen into power; 
(And truth is power;) so, as we say, God forms. 
WiTCHA. Poor w'd a picture be without its frame. 

We worship our genius — 'tis our constitution ; 
But basely we forget the framers o't, — 
T\\Q Joiners, who bowed humbly to the work 
Whereby the canvas of the ship of state 
All the four quarters of the compass takes. 
To speed — and godspeed — man along time's 

vast. 
There's no propeller like a good idea. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 59 

Max. And what a fine idea you are, beauty ! 

Columbia, the "bouquet" of all bouquets! 
The magnet, the Grace Darling of the day : 
With malice to'rds none, with charity to'rds all. 
\^Asu/e.^ The better angel of our nature, you 
Harmony of the mystic chords of memory ! 

^A rainbow appears in heaven. 
Sprites. [Singingr\^ "Triumphal arch! that spann'st 
the sky 
When storms prepare to part, 
I ask not proud philosophy 
To teach me," etc. 
Max. At Sumter's maiden battle, there were hourly, 
Of ordnance, crossed and met above the wave, 
Two tons of metal in the air 1 The fortress 
Capitulated with not one life lost 
On either side, — ay, not a human wounded. 
Officer or "man" ! So was the Pantheon 
Lifted aloft; and so was Re-adjustment 
Hoisted at the polls in Virgin State ! 
And so, methinks, to many another Dodo 
Wings might be given. Peace hath her victo- 
ries 
No less renowned than war. 
Sprites. "Not one life lost." It might have been. 
But was not ; what a pity ! 



6o MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

"Not one life lost." It might have been, 
But was not ; what a pity ! 
Max. Then, what a lesson is that history ! 

What an at-one-ment — for good and all ! 
But we have got to gossiping, my dearling; 
And you may say that you are jewed to death, 
Or rather jawed, as ladies by "illusion." 
WiTCHA. Nay, nay, god-father! 
Max. Ah ! you are ?ny god-child ; 

And I believe that we are one in spirit. 
Oh ! I am played-out. [ Takes seat in common. 
But I '11 not be out-played. 
"Ther^ is more of prose than of poetry about this life.'' 
Witness, the newspapers. Prose is, so to say, in the ma- 
jority. Indeed, to the major, poetry is prose and prose is 
poetry. Then, if men choose to set up a tragedy and wor- 
ship it, let them not insist that the parts they may have as- 
signed to us Jews in that tragedy shall be acted by us out 
in every-day history, or retribution will stir up the major- 
ity (against so putting us in iron mask). It is poetry to 
the management, and tickling to the major, to see us ku- 
kluxed; but if these bad manners go on thus, history wil' 
furnish us with a prose tale; and they who turn poetry into 
prose at our expense, who "give" a big tragedy at others' 
cost, may have the prose of it ! and, of course, such prose 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 6 1 

will be the best sort of poetry for the major. Let them 

have the prose of it ! 

\_Exet(7it, Witcha singing, "When this cruel war is over." 

Scene III. ATaj-ket-place. Fair-time. In Georgia. 
Enter three monks. 

1ST Monk. Yon is a blindfolded man tended by a 
pretty 'Gyptian. He looks bhnd as a pole. 

2ND Monk We'll go salute him and give him an alms. 

3RD Monk. His sight is likely too weak for the light. 
We will be merry. How d' y', Mr. Cupid? 

Max. \_S/iarp/y.'\ How are ye Slaves? 

1ST M. How knew you we were Russians? 

Max. Ay and serfs. — I am a thought-reader. 

2ND M. Then you are not much given to literature. 

Max. \_Atond.'] I also practise second- sight! \_A cj'07iid 
gat/iers.~\ 

3RD M. They never love who love not at first-sight. 

Max. Familiarity breeds contempt. 

"Sot" in crowd. Good ! god dog it. What's y'r game, 
stranger ? 

Max. Logo-machy. 

"Sot." Log-making! — writing up the log? 

1ST M. \_Aside.'] Logomachy — a barbed word that. 
Such is life. We'll make him 'sing!' \_Aloud.'] Why 
wear you the blindfold, my friend? 



62 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Max. For fear first-seers may think I'm 'practising.' 
Practise what you preach. 

Enter a Reporter, dressed as U?icle Sam. 

"Sot." Who are you, countryman? 

Reporter. I am a reporter of pistols — an informer 
upon the subject of concealed weapons. 

Monk. [^Aside.^ Satan in a booth playing with a guit-ar ? 
\^J[/oi/d.^ I thought you were a husband-man. 

Rep. I am — practise what you preach. 

1ST M. \_Aside.'] We are trump'd by the Yankee — 
maker of type writers and father of Morse. 

2ND M. \_Aside.'] Think you of Morse the Passion- 
player ? 

2ND M. \_Aside.'^ No; Morse the lightning-player. 

Monk. \_AIoiid.'\ And here you are Star-spangled ! 

Rep. I grant that to assume the American Standard is 
out of fashion in this locality. 

Monk. Would you have all men put on "Uncle Sam?" 

One in the Crowd. Take it away; it's too thin. 

Rep. Too thin to hide you.. 

Max. \_To Rep7\ "Saxo — es — et — super — hoc — ego." 

Rep. So are we by big Latin and more Greek — Pol- 
ished. And this is Georgia ! where woman blooms in her 
Edenic splendor. 

"Sot." \_ConfusedIy.\ And — man — too — in — his — sple- 
netic — endor. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 63 

Rep. Are the Georgians, then, too, disciples of Endor, 
the first "resurrectionist?" 

Monk. \^Whispenng to Rep.'] Heed not the alcohol; 
that does his talking He is John Bull; once a Greek 
professor and now top-man. 

"Sot." \_OTer/ieari?ig.'] I'e-totally. 

Monk. \_Aside.'] How the sad-sea-dog stammers now. 

Rep. {Extending hand to '' SotT] How are you, Bro' 
Bull ? I 've been reading your pell-mell " Gazette." John 
Bull's my top man. 

"Sot." {Stiittermgr\ Te-totally. St — steady! steady! 

Rep. [Aside.] Ah ! I fell dead in love — like 

" — a soldier. 
Full of strange oaths — 
Jealous in honor — " — 
with the blind man's guide at second sight ! She 's an 
ideal Southron — sunny Southerner ! 

One of the Crowd. Ho! let the professor "see." 

Max. Who are you, voice? 

One. One of the crowd. E pluribus unus. 

Max. Then step out of the crowd. 

1ST Monk. {Aside.} Heloves to be badgered. {Aside.] 
"See" for us, Eoo-ist. 

2ND M. Nepotist. 

3RD M. Pontifex maximus. 

Max. Ah! ignoramus, that's my name. — I am going 



64 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

to bridge the oceans — as rainbow overarches land and 
sea. 

1ST M. You're a riddler. Get to work. 
Sprites. \_ On high, mvisihle^ si7iging.'\ 
Ah! I see; you think of one 

Who would us be giver 
Of Greek fire; One, thought's son, 
Troubled with the liver. 
"Sot" Hi'lo'! what's that? Polarized light? 
1ST M. lAside.'] How Prof. Bull is "sot in his ways." 
He is a Hfe -sized reflection of Sitting Bull in his war-paint. 
2ND M. [AsiWe.'] Bull sitting in his war-paint, [^/cw^/.] 
What 's that voice? 

Max. Ventriloquism! [Asit/e.'] They say that ideas 
come from the stomach. [Alo//^/.] The nineteenth cen- 
tury with its liver complaint? 

Afc7X and Witcha mount Platform. 
Max. \^To WitchaP^ Our platform is the work of good 
joiners. 

Monk. [71; Monk.'\ Mark the ascension of the quack. 
What is a quack? An embodied voice. 

Reporter pi'epares to take notes. 
Monk. [7^ 7?^/-] What are you after, Mr. Shorthand? 
Rep. {Bowing^^ After you, Mr. Monk. Notes to the 
words of seers. My name is Wizard. 

Monk. [Aside.] The wizen Wizard of the North. 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 65 

One in Crowd. Ho! Pole star, are ye ready? 
Max. I am, pole-cat. \ Applause fnun the inob.'\ 

A?i organist in crowd holds itp monkey. 

Organ. What is this, seer? 
Max. \_Looki?ig a/oft.'] What is, is, spirit? 
WiTCHA. O spirit, what? 
Max. This is the ancestral Lemur; 
Dewy-eyed, poetic dreamer. 
Lines of thought upon his face 
All man's history do trace. 

[^Hurrahs on all sides.'\ 
One. You are the seeingest seer Ld ever see. 
Sprites. Sh'd all the sea be ink, love. 
The land mine inkstand be; 
Ld no' write all I think, love, 
Nor half the like — of thee ! 
Monk. \_Aside7\ An idea from an affected stomach. 
One. Who are these ventriloquists? 
Another. Dead-heads who come to the show free of 
charge; like the mummy on his way to the cabinet. 

Yet Another. \_.Pointing to his donkey.'] Lo ! eyes to 
the Wind, what's that? 

Max, You. [Cheers from the cro2vd.~\ 

\_Looking towards the sim.] Declare, O light. 

Witcha. O eye of day, make known. 



66 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

Max. This is a Jerus'lem pony; 

Looks reflective, as a rule ; 
Heir of a vast patrimony. 

Sire of the dogmatic mule. \_Aj>pIaiise.'] 

Monk. \_To Monk7\ Well, he's a mystery. 
One in Crowd. I beheve he's inspired. 
Rep. \^Aside.^ I'll go up and hail the fair witch. 

[S/ie ai first discon7'ages his adTanc€7\ 
Rep. \^Aside.'\ Love's quarrels are love's re-unions. 

[ 21ie three converse?^ 
[Aside.~\ Looks like she'd tnp not Polonaise only, but 
German also. 

Monk. ^To MoiikT^ There's love by lightning express 
time ! I hope he will take a thro'-ticket. He evidently 
seeks the "compagnon de voyage." 
Spirits. \^Above^ singijig.'] 

The reporter marries the Indian, 

And all is well. 
The re-porter marries the in-Dian, 
And all is well. 
One. All are well. It's the dream of my Hfe to be the 
seer of a new world. 

Another. Now, seer, what is that? 
Max. a consummation devoutly to be wished. 
[ Three hands appear in heaven^ supporting an inverted an- 
chor^ as Wizard and Witcha co7ne forward hand in ha?id.'\ 



MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 67 

One. The Iron Cross of Hope ! 
Voice. By this conquer. 

\_The people gather around in circle in s Hence. ~\ 
Max. {Advancifig^ the bandage removed, and pointing to 
the anchor, blessing the tzvo7\ By that image — 

One. "Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore — " 
Max. Children of my heart, I see you at last 

Out of many things one. 
Voice. " Now and forever." 
One. And that is home. 
Another. And home is 

God. 
Spirits. \^0n high, singing.'] 

This is our union, 

Future with hope rife; 
This is our communion: 
Many-sided life. 
Chorus Around. This is our union, 

Future with hope rife; 
This is our Communion : 

Many-sided life. \Exeunt. 

Note. — The following programme (printed, too, out in mid-sea, 
by means of the little apparatus generally used during the voyage 
to prepare the daily "Menus,") of quite "an impromptu affair" 
on the part of certain — very obliging, surely — performers, com- 
posers, writers, and players, (amateur and professional,) is added, 



68 MAX, THE BLIND SEER. 

as being a report (now that one looks back to that charming 

soiree) of an episode of ocean-life. The mythical '' Z? a 

Times'^ is, of course, a pleasantry. About the only liberty I have 
taken with this "Menu" (and people are freer at sea, mostly, 
than elsewhere I) is the, no doubt, suiting one of not giving in 
full the names of the— ever-to-be-remembered — "personnel." — 
Rep, 

H. M. S. "B A" (Capt. H. M- ), 

A CONCERT 

Will be lield in the Saloon 

TO-NIGHT, WEDNESDAY, MAY 14, 1884. 

Concert to commence at 8-0. 

Chairman, E S— , Esq. 

PEOGRAMME. 
Address, The Chairman. 

Duet (Piano), "Faust," Mrs. T and 

Miss K B . 

Eecitation, Miss A. A. G — -. 

Pianoforte Solo, Miss O'M . 

Duet (Vocal), "Excelsior," Mr, E. de K and 

Mr. H B . 

Comic Song, Mr. E. E H . 

Song, Mr. E. de K . 

INTERVAL OF TEN MINUTES. 

Ranoforte Solo, "Scotch Airs," Miss A. G. A . 

Song, "Midshipmite," Mr. H B . 

Pianoforte Solo, Miss O'M . 

Song, "de Koven," Mr. E. de K . 

Recitation, "Aunt Tabitha," Miss A. A. G 

Comic Song, Mr. R. R H . 

Accompanist, Miss K. B . 

A "Collection " will be made during the Interval. 
For report of Concert see the • ■ B a Tivics " of Friday. 



Allone's Songs. 



BOOK 2. 



Ferdinand to Miranda. 

SWEET labor this, 'mid lowly pains, 
While on thy grace I muse ; 
Since only toil this guerdon gains, 

Toil let me not refuse ! 
For others in such dull routine 

I act the menial's part; 
Not in the light of lucre's sheen. 
But of thy love — thou art. 

For still my thoughts thy beauties trace, 

Long as these tasks I bear; 
Cheered by the vision of thy face, 

By truth reflected there ! 
My sovereign good in thee I find ; 

Thy presence is to know 
Light in the temple of my mind, 

Trust, in full rapture's glow ! 

While thus I teach earth's caliban 

To do thy father's hest; 
Hopes of thy self make me strong man, 

And swell work's gasping breast. 



72 ALLONE S SONGS. 

Thou, bright Miranda, art the/r/^^/ 
Thanks, then, to fortune's storm, 

That leaves such radiance to my skies. 
Such rainbow, as thy form. 



Tobacco. 

THY clouds dispel all other clouds," 
Tobacco. 
When misery our life sky shrouds. 
And phantoms gather round in crowds. 
There's no nepenthe'' like the furl'd 
Leaf of the weed of the New World : 
Tobacco. 

A magical inventive thou, 

Tobacco. 
A tender smoother of the brow. 
Not like the opium" that now 
Entrances and then leaves in wo 
Confucian worse confounded : not so 

Tobacco. 

* "Not that Nepenthes which the wife of Thone 
In Egypt gave to Jove-born Helena 
Is of such power to stir iip such joy as this," — Milton. 
^ Juice of the white poppy (Papaver somnif ernm. ) — Rep. 



ALLONE S SONGS. 73 

Nor like to alcohol thou art, 

Tobacco. 
That fires and ashes makes the heart: 
Nay, nought such witchery can impart 
As this, the kind narcotic plan 
The Western Indes yield to man — 

Tobacco. 

The one that does not choose to smoke 

Tobacco, 
Is not a man I want to choke. 
A dame may whiff or snuft' may poke. 
I only mean to say, I '11 vote 
For you as long as Hfe's in throat, 

Tobacco ! — Tecum. Masson. 



WITH downcast eye the half-mute girl 
Moves thro' the busy place; 
The wavy tresses softly curl 
About her marble face. 

'She is the whisperer," they tell, 
"From birth, till now alone: 
Can her sweet voice no higher swell 
Than the low undertone?" 



74 ALLONES SONGS. 

And day by day as round about, 
She goes to humble task; 

The whisperer is pointed out, 
The stranger sure to ask. 

"So beautiful her countenance, 
So angel-like her mien, 
That no, not in this land of France 
Another such is seen." 

Alone she goes to vesper prayer, 
Oft as cathedral tower 

Its signal breaks upon the air 
At the accustomed hour. 

"She is the beauty of the town," 
The people ever say; 
And sure are you to gain a frown 
Who dare to tell them nay. 



The Giafifs Graved 

COME forth, genius of the west, 
In y'r olden armor drest; 



Cooper's Mountain, Rockingham, Va. 



ALLONE S SONGS. 75 

Immemorial Keeper, rise, 
Shake the dream from off y'r eyes; 
Like an earthquake burst the ground 
Of y'r arch colossal mound ; 
You that lie in spellbound awe 
'Neath the marble face of law, 
Rouse you, ancient mariner ! 
See the water, murmurer, 
Marches sparkling by y'r feet. 
Live as ever, clear and fleet. 
Solemn, vast sarcophagus, 
Can you ever hold him thus? 
While the trumpet-flowers'' bloom 
Blown** by nature o'er his tomb? 
While to Easter's call arise 
Myriad perfumes to the skies; 
Incense, as feels mother earth, 
Resurrection's glorious birth? 
While the sky-lark's anthems flow 
To the slumbering folk below; 
While all else doth rise again. 
Say, shall he himself remain 
Supine thus nor heed the life 
Round him, nor the botiyant strife? 

* Virginia Creeper. ^ Bloomed. 



76 allone's songs. 

Hark, sweet echo, ghost of voice, 
Wakes about, and bids rejoice ; 
And a rainbow's dewy arc 
Curves along the cloud-land dark, 
Cloud-land scattered by the ray;— 
Hail, O rising lord of day. 
Piercing-eyed, transcendent one, 
Bountiful, immortal sun! 
Now from lofty Lover's Leap 
View I y'r commanding sleep; 
Titan of the New World, laid 
In the grave by angels made. 
And in rich Mosaic spread 
Grass and moss ^ and ferns y'r bed. 
Waving forest over all. 
Oak and pine, primeval pall; 
Ah ! my heart 's this Sabbath dawn 
(While the rifle spares the fawn. 
And Joy's giddy gliders pause 
Young Terpsichore's old cause,) 
Buried in your casket-bier 
Still bedewed by evening's tear ! 
Son of heaven, calm stretched forth. 
Face to the magnetic North, 

* Star-moss. 



ALLONES SONGS. 77 

Looking toward the changeless dome 

Built for y'r eternal home ! 

Thus the sun's path shapes a cross 

Over you in sign of loss; 

Grave, as 7'eal sepulchre 

As at Stratford traveller 

Bows to, or that other fane 

Christians wept o'er, Moslems reign !^ 

Spirit of the spirits, hail; 

Truth you are and will prevail ! 

All about the western shrine 

Clustered o'er by clinging vine, 

How the children of the land 

Point to it with trembling hand, 

Scions of "Columbia," 

Rapt as Hinds in Syria, 

Fancy-fed at gloaming late, 

While the giant lies in state; 

With that faith the "wise ones" mock, 



*It has been argued that a giant is certainly buried in Cooper's 
Mountain, and that the ribs of quartz are his bones. "There 
were giants in those days," and as the world is thought to be al- 
most infinitely old (the size of the animate increasing in propor- 
tion as we go back), mathematically, at least, we soon come to a 
man great enough to fill the "Giant's Grave." 

— Rep. 



7 8 allone's songs. 

Faith that Hves like mountain rock : 
Tell in deep religious dread 
Of the resting sea-king's bed : 
" On his grave by moonlight pale, 
Watched by spirits of the vale, 
Fairies dance (stars in disguise. 
By the moon led, circle-wise); 
And the Blue Ridge lies serene 
Background of the charmed scene." 
Lo, while far the village spire 
Points the worshipers yet higher; 
Now hope sees his perfect form 
Starting as hath died the Storm ; 
There he stands, the giant sight, 
Face reflecting heaven's light. — 
Sweetly blows spring's genial breeze 
Thro' the patriarchal trees 
Standing sentry o'er his naould : 
Tenderest lambkins of the fold, 
Nibbling peacefully, are seen 
Feeding on him 'mid the green; 
Tho' the bear yet shuffles round 
The uncultivated ground. 
Golden Rod, the magic wand 
Flora scepters o'er the land. 
Waves its shining length in sign 



ALLONE S SONGS. 79 

That this grave we ne'er resign. 

And far milkmaid sends aloft 

As TtEoHan harp notes soft, 

Adding e'er, in voice of cheer, 

Tinkling rhymes, (that soothe the ear, 

Somewhat as a watcher's bell 

Can collect the wanderers well, 

Tongue of bell, that, chiming still. 

Answers oft the shepherd will; 

Or perhaps as echoing gong 

Calls the company along). — 

Thus a worshiper I am 

'Mid your heights, wild Rockingham, 

With the incense of new prayer 

Wafted through this Grecian air 

So pellucid, so refined. 

Lending pinions to the mind; 

Lone with heaven's vaulted blue 

Softly bounding all the view. 

Let the churl that's "Moonshine's" slave 

Mock the idea of the grave;* 

^"Moonshine" (illicit whiskey,) so called, is distilled secretly 
by moonlight. "The idea!" exclaimed the rude swain at the 
base of Cooper's Mountain ; he could see no sense in the new 
name which now almost universally obtains ; imagination had no 
charms for him, and thus his intelligence felt insulted, while to 



60 ALLONE S SONGS. 

With loud oaths (the spirit's death): 

Drinking zest at every breath, 

I will, with yon child (whose eye 

Stole the azure of the sky,) 

Lost in rapture, bless this sod. 

And unearth a very god. 

Come forth, spirit! animus. 

Spirit of the life of Us; 

Our one, rise ! and lift the veil 

Passes e'er o'er death's face pnle. 

Hidden Man of Freedom's heart, 

Buried excellency, start 

To the race of faith and love ! 

Thine domestic, long-lived dove ! 

Lo, I see you ! by th' unsealed 

Book of nature now revealed. 

'Tis enough; to stronger eyes 

Manifest the glad surprise 

In perfection; common wealth 

Of the future ; font of health. — 

" Lover's Leap ! " where love its arts 

Tries, the rostrum of y'r quartz 

others it is, in the words of the young hidy's exclamation, "an 



allone's songs. 8i 

Pulpit seems above the sea 
(Trembling leaves) now facing me : 
Each a countenance to fade 
Quite as fast as beauty, made 
No two"" like in all the glade. 
Ancient temple ! love the priest 
Is upon this Easter feast; 
Moss pall o'er the rich-dressed grave 
Yonder laid, beyond the Nave ! 
Angel birds make up the choir, 
Sun the censer swinging higher. 
To this waving wilderness, 
Priest, y'r oracles address. — 
Here the magic of the tongue, 
Game of world, whereon lives hung, 
Hath been played; here art each card. 
Joker, diamonds, hearts; sleights hard 
Hath essayed with guarded "hand" 
Thus the "fair" chance to command. 
In the name of love divine, — 
No such adoration mine ! 

*^In a recent mimber of the Fortniglitly Review, a lady writer 
tells us of a church in England where two Virginia Creepers are 
planted, and which is, therefore, popularly referred to as the 
place "where the jennies grow." — Hep. 



82 allone's songs. 

No! I would not '' follow suit," 
Play the deuce, and knave to boot; 
But in name of God and men. 
Bid our genius rise again ! 



Hilltop Zoe. 

" The queen of the west, 
In her garlands drest, 
On the banks of the beautiful river. 

ZOE on the Hilltop hves, 
Ever blithe and chatty, 
Best of the restoratives, 
Flame of Cincinnati, 
Our Zoe — he must climb 
Who would see the best of time. 

Up above the din and smoke 
Of the business people 

Lives the sprite that we invoke. 
Over church and steeple. 

Hidden Zoe! — he must cHmb 

Who would see the best of time. 

Zoe Dearborn is a star 
Never found to vary. 



allone's songs. 83 

How we saw her? Took the car 

Known as "Highland Mary." 
.Then to Zoe's— he must dimb 
Who would see the best of time. 

" Zoe is a quick thing." Truth. 
But as "cold as Chloe"* 
When, to "pump" her, fall the youth 

Dead in love with Zoe, 
Lofty Zoe ! — he must climb 
Who would see the best of time. 



Sailor's Plea. 



YE waiting angels, pray for me ! 
Not men, but fiends, o'er land and sea 
Watch for my hfe of life. About 
The hissing wave they spy me out. 



Satan's detectives dog my way. 
In cunning covert, night and day: 
Yet, One Divine, my hope on thee 
Is fixed forever.— Pray for me ! 



* We asked in vain for an explanation of this well-known pro- 
verb ; 60 we were compelled to fall back on our surmise that it is 



84 allone's songs. 

The Water loo. 

(J. c, " Grove over the water. '^^^ 

\ TAR ill secretest recess 
i 1 In Netherland was wilderness; 
The highwoods locked their arms o'erhead 
And green was like a brussels spread : 
Beneath that green, concealed from eye, 
A treach'rous marsh did ever lie ; 
Who entered that gothic fane 
Did never more come out again. 

Allur'd by the regaling view, 

How oft into the water loo 

Did solitary huntsman go 

And sink — and vanish — where? None know. 

The husbandmen that dwelt around 

Whispered that it was haunted ground. 

And swore that jack-o'-lantern e'er 

Had victims'" by the myriad here. 



derived from the fact that Chloe and her folks are stated to h> ve 
been the "informers,'' so to say, of Paul; and we never knew 
that informers, of any sort, were— strictly popular characters. — 
Rep. 
'-" ' ' We are merely cheated of our lives. " — Shakespeare. 



ALLONE S SONGS. 85 



I know not; I was never there, 

But somehow, Hke a quaint nightmare, 

The water loo at dead of night 

Arises often in my sight : 

I hear the fiends, that wassail keep 

When honest folk should be asleep; 

And calls o'erhead a voice too, 

"Take care, take care, of water loo!" 



Notes on '^ Psychological Physiology:' 

POOR man! the "diary" and love 
Torment him very fell ly. 
The "diary" within his heart 
And love within his b - y. 

The gripes and love are rabid si — ts; 
That tears the heart and this the g — ts. 

{By a German materialist.) 



The " Communists:' 

With an enthusiasm not too tonic 

They preach that men, being all one, be all-on'-^ic. 



86 allone's songs. 

German Beer song. 

1T7E need not tell what Tacitus 
V\ Writ on the old "Dutch" nation; 
But sure he was no blunderbuss, 

Nor spoke without foundation. 
We hope no brain is in a muss; 

Be tacit then on Tacitus; 
Himself who understands not us 

Must go to father Tacitus.* 

Old Tacitus is pretty clear 

About the former " Dutchmen :" 
But, brothers, let's be mute, just here — 

Are we now any such men ? 
To say we are, 'cause we love thus — 

But tacit be on Tacitus. 
Himself who understands not us 

Must go to father Tacitus. 



Monticello. 



r IKE him who died lone on the mountain-height 
Lv With God, the teacher sleeps in glory on ; 



*The testimony of this annalist, in the " Oermania''' to the 
beeriness of the ancient Germans is familiar enough. — Rep. 



allone's songs. 87 

The second of the Twelve that round our One 
Stood at the focus of the fiery fight; 
High o'er the plain, far hid from vulgar sight, 

The master builder. He shall rise anon 

In spirit, and bid seers look upon 
The past (the mirror of the present), aright ! 
The Father, that was thorn-crowned with the bane 

Of slander, as was Socrates of old. 
Must rise as Chief Executive again. 

And in his hand the sacred Scroll forth hold 
Embodying the idea which amain 

The ages aye in history unfold. 



ON yestereve ashore from o'er the sea 
I lay down on that shore and haply dreamed 
From "gcean caves" I gathered gems, which beamed 
In mine own palm; and upon even me! — 
Poor sea-ill thing, where none but strangers be — 
Truth, in the form of the high Virgin seemed 
Poised in the air to smile. While the gems gleamed 
I woke, and ah ! from my grasp silently 
They melted into Nothing. Oft methinks 

Each truth whereafter one in deep mines delves, 
Each flight beyond (and outside our vain selves), 
Be but of hfe's dream now, and all my care 



88 allone's songs. 

Into illusion and mere reverie sinks; 
And all one's labours vanish into air. 



T/ie Models Prayer. 



FATHER, — for father is thy name, 
That sums all up — from arts of shame 
Defend us, thine handmaids, this night : 
Brothers and sisters in thy sight 
Are all the children of the earth : 
Thy name be hallowed thus, from birth 
Till death, and thus thy power come, 
To watch the daughters of thy home. 
Our needed bread give us each day, 
Nor let our falling be the pay. 
Deliver us from tempters' art. 
And keep entire for thee our heart. 
Forgive us all, for thou art love. 
The same on earth as high above. 
Rome, 1884. 

Sailor's Riddle. 

I'M everybody, yet I'm nought; 
Your unit, yet a cipher thought; 
I'm everywhere, on land or sea. 
Yet where 's the eye that hath seen me? 



alt^one's songs. 89 

The child of many fathers I, 
Have yet no genealogy; 
Tho' I am in my prime, I still 
Am just as old as any hill. 

Before you were, I am; the same 
As at the first except in name; 
I was in Adam ere he fell : 
Mine ear shall hear the race's knell. 



Sabbath Morn. 



SABBATH day; blessed morn; 
For the genius of love, 
Of man's sepulchre born, 
Hath ascended above : 

So the household God fair. 
That himself to us gave, 

Rose from earth into air; 
Angels opened the grave — 

Joy that fiends failed to slay; 

Our union, our peace; 

Our heart's ease ; the Day 

Of dark Flesh's release. 
A'pril 37'd) '76. 

7 



QO ALLONE S SONGS. 

To Macaulafs " Virginia^ 

UPON the rock the stabb'd Virginia Hes, 
A speechless sacrifice and witness thus 
Lest she be slave to an Arch-Claudius. 
The river, storming hard by, to the skies 
A groan, a murmur sends. 

How still doth rise 
The sacred incense, and recall to us 
A love-lorn form denied its obsequies. 
Deserted to the crows. 

Oh! tyrannous 
And damned usurpation, dark incest — 
Yet, commonplace and humble Saxi-frage, 
That I have found amid the masonry 
Beside the river, you're a fable blest, 
A parable divine, for this hard age. 
The truth shall grow, and shatter tyranny. 
Rome, 1884. 



Note. — In these days nearly every one is suspected of " talking 
behind his words," that gangrene of language. It has actually 
come to the pass where I live — Herculaneum, street of the Glad- 
iators — that none but the simple-minded say what they mean. 
Men shudder at one another like children at artificial ghosts. 
For "fear" any reader may fancy the above sonneteer (who 
thus but gallantly contributed his "mite," he said, towards 



allone's songs. 91 

Jewish Song; 
for Day of Reconcilement. 

BY ABEL BENJESU. 



M 



Y spirit, 
That merit 
Nor beauty hath, 
Take, Lord my lamp on the dismal path ! 
To thee the forgiver 
Live she forever : 
Adonai echath. 

varying the monotony of sea-sickness, against which Allone 
started his concerts, partly,) to be "thief-slanging," we quote the 
following from a late number of a Keview, by way of illustrating 
how easy it is to turn everything (including ourselves) into fable, 
parable, myth, etc., — L e., to turn words "wrong side out." If 
our author above is obscure he would like to be considered then 
what he really is, an obscure man— and in fact it would seem that 
only such can afford not to be "obscure.'" Sham society is one 
of the chief causes of the abuse of words. He who tells truth is 
soon told to "tell that to the marines." 

" How easy it would be in a few cf nturies to turn Gen. Washing- 
ton into a solar myth ; Great Britain, a region of clouds and rain, 
into the kingdom of clouds and darkness. America, with more 
sunshine, is the day. Great Britain, as darkness, wishes to de- 
vour the young day, or dawn of light, which America is about to 
diffuse over the earth. But Washington, the solar hero, arrives. 



92 allone's songs. 

Reclaimer, 
Proclaimer 

Of pardon too, 
Be, Lord, our guide to the long rest through. 
Through all, through that hour. 
We trust in thy power; 
Adonai Elohenu. 

Light's fountain, 
High mounting. 

That bids us hail. 
Thine, Lord ! shine thou on the shadow- vale. 
And sing we the chorus. 
When it is before us : 

Shema Israel ! 



Adieux ! 

A GODDESS was miladie Venice when. 
Eery with her coral scepter and her crown 
Of pearl, sea's president she far look'd down 
Upon the madcap waves her subjects then. 

He is from Virginia — i. e., born of a Virgin. He was born in 
February ; the sign of the aquarius and the fishes plainly re- 
ferred to the birth of the sun from the ocean." — North Ameri- 
can Review. — Bep. 



ALLONE S SONGS. 93 

Her doges cynosures amid men ; 

Her smile so courted and so feared that frown 
As o'er blue ocean shone her bright renown 

And for her vied the pencil and the pen. 

Adieu, O virgin daughter of the breeze ! — 

A new sphere that her zenith knew not of 

Is rising west, and thitherward I go. 

Thy polity at Mary's feet sat, sees 

Itself in other form of truth apd love 

Ascended there, and spanned by promise' bow. 

— By a Folitian. 

Our Sphere. 



YOU that wonder at our Life 
Ask whereon 'tis resting ! 
"Yours, a world of song; of strife, 
Ours," you cry, contesting. 
Hark, and I will tell the fact 

Minus any mouthing, — 
Just y'r idea intact : 

Our truth rests on nothing. 

So you thought? Ha, ha; ye wise, 
Take this westering planet; 



94 ALLONE S SONGS. 

What supports it as y'r eyes 

Scientific scan it? 
What doth bear it up in space, 

Does an Atlas save her? 
NOTHING under heaven's face : 

Pray, what can be braver ! 



So the truth is our sphere ; 

And doth need no turtle 
To bear witness, lest we fear 

When doubt's arrows hurtle. 
This earth needs no miracle. 

No maintaining wonder; 
With its own momentum full, 

What vile prop is under? 

Bolster heaven with a name. 

Truth sinks to each wrecker : 
Good shall be, that's raised on fame. 

Short-lived as an echo. 
No! our Life's of unseen path. 

As light's orbit doth; thing 
Self-poised, endless sides that hath, 

Sphere that moves on nothing, 



ALLONE S SONGS. 95 

The Eas^le and the Python. 



*<i' 



SCARCE poises she upon triumphant wing 
When far below she spies a ghttering thing; 
Circled on a rock it stares on high 
Towards her form with flattery's subtle eye. 
The fatal charm of its Satanic stare 
Works on her tho' a spirit says "Beware!" 
Such thing of state, such mistress of the sphere, 
She knows the fate, yet draws enchanted near ! 
She flutters in the toils and stoops to cherish 
'Ihe monster by whose fangs she fain would perish! 
Such is thy awful fascination, vice; 
Such Satan's mysteries that our land entice. 
Flee from the Horror ! look above to One 
Alone who can destroy th' Apollyon. 
[^ song never pennedr\ By Abel Smiths. 



Solo 
of a Reporter. A Score. 



"• F) EPORT thyself, Reporter!" seems to say 

1 V Each wave of the old sea to me to-day. 
What cunning shorthand have I now to tell 
My whole self out in brief? others so well 



g6 allone's songs. 

I minute down — why not then phonograph 

The secrets of my Hfe? "Y'r epitaph 

Is all that need be written after that," 

Whispers to me with emphasis so pat 

That arch old serpent " commonsense " yclept: 

So truth forever to oneself is kept? 

The skeletons locked up by each of us 

Don't stand much chance to get an airing thus ! 

Ah ! Providence (that power none understand), 

That holds us in the hollow of its hand, 

Anon reporteth all; the great, the small, 

Alike into its field of vision fall. 

Vain, vain is the reporter's eye at best, 

Without the soul behind it, or warm breast. 

How caitiff then, aliens in sooth. 

The "representatives" who boycott truth. 

Note. — Dear friend, my reader, whoever you may be, I am no 
country milksop ; but I tell thee, after witnessing in Holland 
the fascination of a dove by a python. I returned home to my ho- 
tel and "retired," so set aghast that, "Sambo"-ic sleeper as I am, 
I could not even doze one wink the live-long night! I marked 
that dove skip down from the topmost bough gradually to the 
ground, and then dance with twinkling eyes towards the python 
coiled about the roots, and finally go and bill and-coo the chill 
slimy smiling death ! Such was the fatal magnetum of the 
pythonic eye that the bird possibly went as gladly and as con- 
sciously to its doom as a martyr to the stake. The fascination of 



ALLONES SONGS. 97 

Jesuite. 

REMEMBER, son, 
How Socrates, in attic story, claim'd 
That he knew nothing, and was then most wise 
Of men, for they, nought knowing, thought they knew, 
And he knew nothing but his ignorance. 
Therefore I am- — a missionary here — 
Resolving to know nothing. 

mystery, no, I mean the mystery of fascination, has ever been in 
dispute, somewhat as the old enigma of the sea-serpent. Amid 
a London babel of waters in mid-sea once I fancied I saw an 
eye in the distance that irresistibly called up the sea-serpent — 
though I cannot vouch for it as an item for natural history ; but 
as to fascination, my skepticism on that idea has forever been 
put at rest. What an inspired comparison, is the ancient figure 
of " that old serpent ! " See the fine photo', of the spell of it, in 
" Cain." Time would fail us as well as patience to the reader to 
have here a half even of such of the Allonean s«:jngs as we have 
reduced to writing ; yet it must not be omitted to remind the 
public now and then of the way in which the Allonians put in 
form the truceless fight of Old Stormy (the Neptune of modern 
sea-lore), with the infinite serpent. O the slavery of the mischief 
of just such "fascination" as education has to contend with! 
We are thrice slaves ; slaves of self, slaves of others, and slaves 
of — the Devil. As one of the reporters of Allone, (ay, I will say 
it, as one of those who saw him raised,) let me say he was nature 
itself, and that as such he was a perfect revelation of humanity I 
He was the genre-picture of real life I No attempt has been made 



98 allone's songs. 

Castle Teutobcrg. 

ON a cliff o'er the North Sea a castle 
(So song says) lay, once on a time ; 
And the sea-king, afar, a leal vassal, 
Oft hailed its white towers sublime. 

'Twas Teutoburg, gray with the ages; 

Its massy foundation went rock 
To the heart o' the earth; and no rages 

Of storm would its bastion shock. 

But it fell before fiends; and now bruin 
And reynard, while high overhead 

by us to present any such thing as a harmony of reports ; suffice 
it to say that the phonographers differed both in ear and in exe- 
cution, and convinced as they were that he was well worth re- 
porting, they, at the same time, all' feel that their reproduction 
of him — experienced as each was in "taking down" — can only 
be a caricature in comparison with the original. The mere idea 
of him, however, it is hoped, will be good news to many ; and as 
it is a common saying that even Raffaello's transiiguration is dis- 
appointing, so we would insist that Allone is but buried in the 
book ; that he is do more dependent upon us than a forever- 
fixed theorem in geometry is upon any one particular statement 
of it! He is much like Venice: "Chi non te vede, ei non te 
pregia" — Love's labor's lost : so says oracular old Holof ernes. — 
lEd.-] 



ALLONE S SONGS. 99 

The lone eagles watch, haunt the ruin 
Where Teuton, the host, lieth dead. 

And sailors still swear they are able 
By midnight to catch from the height 

A sound as of ghosts round a table, 
Who pledge to renew the old fight. 

So the saying is rife on the water, 

The host will arise from the grave 
And build home again, and the daughter, 

Fair Ida, be queen of the wave. 

And Teutoberg, prouder than ever. 
Must rise to command the wild sea. 

With a new world around; and no, never, 
Shall it fall, that stronghold of the Free. 



Schuechtenie Tritte. 

BY "FRITZ." 



SCHWAECHERE Horden, wenn sie das sandige Ufer 
betreten, 
Tilgen sorgsam mit Haenden die Spur ihrer schuechternen 
Tritte. 



lOO ALLONES SONGS. 

Hier trinken Voelker das ausgesogene Blut ihrer Feinde : 
Scheinbar waffenlos, Andere wuergen mit giftigem Nagel. 
Ewig seh'n wir den Menschen gegen den Menschen ge- 

ruestet. — 
So verfolgt den Wanderer ueber den weiten Erdkreis, 
"Ueber Land und Meer,'"" das Bild des entzweiten Ge- 

schlechtes. 
So bereitet der Mensch auf der untersten Stufe der Roheit, 
So im Scheinglanze seiner Bildung, sich mueh' voiles Leben. 
D'rum blickt, wer im Zwist der Voelker nach Geistesruh' 

strebet, 
Aufwaerts, wo hohe Gestirne in Einklang die Bahnen voU- 

enden ; 
Oder gern in der heil'gen Natiirkraft inneres Wirken. 

[Readers will instantly recognize in the above dozen of dac- 
tylics a "broken" echo of Humboldt ("the great traveller," 
HP Shakespeare says — we must quote some aiithority in tLese 
days.) Nor ^vill thfy have to go far to "spot" others "of that 
ilk." Thfyhawe not yet agreed to furnish an index of "sources ;" 
in fact, as far as we are concerned, to tell " the ti'uth, the whole 
truth, and nothing but the truth," we confess, our little book of 
"books" has been mainly made (like Artemus Wai'd's famous 
get-up of his newspaper) by the "Columbia" type- writer, the 
sheep-shears, and the glue- pot. — Ed. ] 

*A great illustrated journal. 



ALLONES SONGS. lOI 

A Salvo. 



BY JACK O'HEAKTS. 



HAIL to our men of Letters! the ne'er match'd, 
By whom the mugwump scholar is dispatch'd ; 
Hail unto A. B. C. D. E. F. G., 
H. L J., K. L. M. N. O. P.! Q. R. S. T., 
U. v., W. X. Y. Z.! The fairy Moai ^— 
But "hold the Jack back"! — will out, by-and-by. 
" Give me mine Angle," Cleopatra cries, 
As forth from billiards to the Bank she hies; 
Give me mine Angle ! — Anglo-Saxon true ! — 
And you are "taut" O slaves. Of Boycott" you? 
The Fenian sham-rock that our banco Drones 
Worship in secret, for ill- work atones? 
"English the Ball!" in lingo of the Ci/e ; 
And show the "Dark-ies" what the Goth can do. 
"When Goths were Goths," ° Eleusis and her scenes 
Sank into Smithers — into Smithereens; 



^ "M. O. A. L doth sway my \\ie.'"—Mal'DoUo. 
^ Etymology of " boycott " : 

" "We kneeling see 
Her and the Boy-Qod^ 
What 's in a name, I ask. -^ 
'Shakespeare's "Titus Adronicus." 



lOJ ALLONE S SONGS. 

So shall at last before "Revealing Day,"'' 
Craft's pythoness and nightmare snail away. 
Hail, men of Letters ! Bro's in law ! 
Before you all the earth must bow in awe ? 
The crazy jumble of the thieves'-slang heard 
Beco7nes^^ that '•'■ Gj-eek Lie'' that you dub "The Word. 
Hail to our men of Letters ! the ne'er match'd, 
By whom the mugwump scholar is dispatch'd ! 



Logic of Events. 

A SAGE, with Hegel's Logic spread 
Across his knees, scratched sore his head 
In thinking how one idea led 
To others, as Sir Hegel said — 

Abstracted — abstracting — the abstract ; 
When, thro' the garden's foliage 
Two pink-white arms flew round the sage, 
And clasped him in so sweet a cage 
He lost all thought of Hegel's page — 

Concreted — concreting — the Concrete. 

^ Mr, Spedding's edition of Bacon's Mask. 
b " Tlie place 
Became religion." — Manfred. 

— Re'p. 



ALLONE S SONGS. IO3 

Andromache. 

AND stonewall Hector left the plain of Troy 
To meet at home the fair Andromache; 
But found her not, for with her child, the boy 

The Trojans fondly named their Hope, had she 
Now sought the tower, in eager wish to see 

The battle from the lofty parapet. 
And offer up to Jove her tearful plea 
For Troy, as far below the armies met 
In mortal fray and fought till earth was crimson-wet. 

Scarce at the palace threshold, sad he learned 
That both were gone together, she to pray 

That Hector might not perish; and returned 

The way he came, without one thought that they 

Sh'd living meet; when, at the high gateway. 
Whom sees he but his queenly wife and child 

In haste to hail him ! he, their infant, lay 
Starlike upon her breast now beating wild 
With joy. And Hector stood and silent gazed and 
smiled 

Upon them. Quick she grasped her husband's hand. 
And sobbed aloud in anguish. "Soon," she said, 

"Must death be yours, and soon must we two stand. 
In this world, all alone. When Hector's dead. 



I04 ALLONES SONGS. 

Andromache will never cease to shed 

Love's tears. I am the last of all my race, 

An orphan now. The son of Thetis sped 
The winged shaft that paled my father's face, 
Whom nymphs bemoaned and dressed with elms his 
resting place. 

"My brothers all have sunk before the might 

Of that same hero, our unwearied foe; 
The queen who ruled beneath the Placian height, 

My tender mother died by Dian's bow, 
And every friend has perished long ago. 

Then, Hector, you are all to me and him. 
Our life, our hope, the only aid we know ; 

Oh ! leave us not to terrors dark and grim ; 

Behold a mother's eye with tears of pleading dim ! " 

The soldier answered, "Well, I feel for you, 
For wife and only child; but Troy is pressed 

And needs her courage; she must have her due 
From all her children. Hector cannot rest 

While comrades call him and are sore distressed; 
And Xanthus pours into the deep a tide 

Of Trojan blood. Alas ! 'tis fate's behest 
That Troy be crossed; but I cannot abide 
That mournful hour; ere then this captain must have 
died. 



ALLONE S SONGS. IO5 

"The deepest pain I bear is your sad fate, 

Andromache ; to think of those dark years 
When you must hve a slave, compelled to wait 

On Argive dames, and hear the heartless jeers 
Of victors. Some, perhaps, will mark your tears 

And say, ' Behold the wife of Hector chief, 
Stonewall of Troy, the man that spread such fears 

In war.' Death make your day of slavery brief; 

May I be dead and gone ere such shall be your grief!" 

Then Hector proudly stretched his eager arm 
Toward his child, and smiled to see him quail 

And quake and quickly shrink in wild alarm 
Before the crest that nodded in the gale. 

With helmet doffed, the cheek no longer pale, 

He fondly pressed; then prayed that heaven might fire 

His child with valor that would never fail 
In danger's moment, and all Troy admire 
The champion's son, and say, "How greater than his 
sire ! " 

"And may he always cheer his mother's heart," 
He said, and placed within her arms their son, 

On whom she laughed in tears, that soon must start 
In fresh abundance. Surely grief had done 

Its work on that wan face, whence yet full shone 



io6 allone's songs. 

The soul within. And then did Hector pHght 
His last farewell; and slowly have begun 
I'he homeward way, a mother marble-white 
With woe, and One, whose infant-heart can but be Light. 



Notes 
From a ' * Log-book. ' 



' ' For your sake 
Am I this patient log-man." 

— Ferdinand to Miranda. 

HOW many are the reasons men get wrecked? 
As many as are sHps 'tween cup and lip. 
Old Stormy cometh when we least expect. 

Some study not the "mystery of the ship," 
And scorn the chart long ages did perfect. 
So Stormy brings their mock true, "Let her R. L P." 
Some vainly spread more sail than they can carry. 
And wake up when they've gone down- — to Old Harry. 

Some burst th'r boiler — now the stomach of 
A steamer is its boiler. They "o'er-feed," 

And find themselves one fine morn blown above. 
Some get run into when they give no heed; 



allone's songs. 107 

More cargo take than can propeller shove; 
Some get into a "Dutch Fog" lost indeed, 
And run afoul of reefs, snags, quicksands soon : 
Comes Monitor and blows them at the moon. 

Pilot a very John-a-Dreams may be, 

Suftering with "absence of mind"— and Pilot ought 
The will be of a "Ladie of the sea." 

Some have less good old ballast, sober thought, 
And brawl against the Master's polity. 
And mutiny — un-civil war ! — for nought. 
But superstition curses most y'r Tar ; 
And things that are not, ruin tilings that are. 

Bacon is powerful to make you thirsty ; 

As the hart pants for the water-brook, so pants he, 
Who tastes him, for true knowledge. Most books, bursty 

As bubbles, you contemn like necromancy ; 
But he who made induction science first, he 
Induces you to work (not on your fancy). 
On what's around you, sets you to relying 
Upon yourself and boldly, closely prying. 

Things, truth, that bear thy likeness form a locket 
About my heart of heart, and I have lent 'em 

My all ; may not be much within the pocket 
To yield a rich and radiant per centum ; 



I08 ALLONES SONGS. 

Yet shall it serve, as lawyers say, for "docket, 
Docquet, or doggett (Lat. documentum) " — 
See Brande, sub voce, Harpers, '43 — to 
Protest for thee and give, t' imposture, veto. 

Blessed is youth ! it is the hour of dreams, 

Of inspiration and unselfishness; 
Of vast ideals and of Polar schemes ; 

Of plans to save the universe — no less. 
Blest is the youth; to him all is that seems; 
Nature regales him with her warm caress. 
"To him is given the future — with its bubbles. 
Its sad successes, and its merrie troubles.'"" 

What hapless and forever scornful fate 

Was thine, O waxen winged Icarus, 
Whilst proudly soaring mindless of thy mate ! 

Beware of ending lamentably thus. 
Ye who on sense's pinions self-elate 
Would mount to secret heights unmeant for us. 
Triumphant strut where Gabriel never trod. 
And calmly search the very face of God. 

'^This last couplet is from a somewhat lengthy, and equally 
fine piece, written lately, during a voyage to find the North Pole> 
by a sailor, who perished sooa after, as have so many before him 
in this seductive search. — Hep, 



allone's songs. 109 

To "know the ropes" of Uncle Sam's big craft 
Columbia; to play those strings skilfully; 

By "tacking" to make hostile winds to waft; 
To keep the Log-book of its History; 

How needful ever to look fore and aft ! 

To have, lest the Columbians ^^ mutiny, 

The "kind, Ufe-rendering politician'"' scoff d; 

And needful, above all, to look aloft." 



" We remember how the crew of Columbus rose. 

''A former reading in "Hamlet;" to have omitted which in 
subsequent editions of the tragedy is but another illustration of 
the proverb, " The play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out." 

" Secretary (of the Navy) Spanlding once summed up our War 
of Independence in the following humorous parable : " One day 
when the Squire was even more than usually pressing in his de- 
mands, which he accompanied with threats, Jonathan started up 
in a furious passion and threw the tea-kettle at the old man's 
head. The choleric Bull was hereupon exceedingly enraged ; and 
after calling the poor lad an undutifu], ungrateful, rebelHous 
rascal, seized him by the collar and, forthwith, a furious scuffle 
ensued. This lasted a long time: for the Squire, tho' in years, 
was a capital boxer ; at last, however, Jonathan ' got him under,' 
and before he would let him up, made him sign a paper giving 
up all claim to the farms and acknowledging the fee simple to be 
in Jonathan forever ! " — Rep. 



tlO ALLONES SONGS. 

Jeremiacs. 

A Psalm of Dcg}'ecs, by a Jezv. 

LAZERS degrade the noble name of Mason.'' 
Oh ! what a bed of sand they set their base on ! 
Go work, ye stone-fac'd Hars; not a plinth 
Ere long remaineth of y'r Labyrinth : 
House of ill fame, of ''mystery," ye build 
With others' toil; its penetralia fill'd 
With charnel of the Virgins'' ye have slain. 
Their violated forms shall rise again 
And such a damning accusation tell 
That vainly ye for hiding Rock shall yell ! 
The Mystic Maiden Market," where fiends burke. 
Then torture, and then poison, is y'r "work": 
This Ganglion of Hell ye did create 
To be the Privy Chamber of our State ? 
Ho, watchman of heaven's Parthenon, arise 
And blast the recreants high as to the skies. 
Smiths, with y'r arms of steel, let lazers know. 
Up, rifle the curst tramps before they go. 
These men of "Letters" !'^ Watchmen, do not flinch 
Better by far the summary Judge Lynch 
Than see the daughters'' of the workman thrust 

''Author of *■'■ Bill of Rights.'" ^ I. e., Commonwealths. 
'^ Molly Maguire strike. ^ ** Let or hindrance." 



ALLONE'S songs. Ill 

By panders into arms of Moloch lust. — 
Hear, hear, ye laborers ! Drive to the hilt 
The Sword of justice in these men of Gilt. 
Smash into chips the Idols of the Den'' 
Where lodge rank monsters in the garb of men. 
There in the centre as "His Worship" known 
God Nero redivivus on a throne ! — 
O Daughter'" of the People, rise; be shown! 



To John Smith. 

Air : " Ha ha lia, you aud me," etc. 

SMITH ! since it's a common name 
Is it proper? All the same, 
Then, I'll sing to one John smith. 
Or if better to John's myth; 
For I wot that legally 
"John Smith" meaneth nobody! 
Hail ! John Smith, of many One, 
Greater then than Washington; 
Common Man; of whose great Form 
We're but shadows; general Norm, 



"See Bacon, ''Novum Organum.''' 
^' A hebraism. 



ii2 ALLONES SONGS. 

Thou immortal one; Smiths die, 
But John Smith's the same stand-by 
Deathless as the Wandering Jew- — 
O John Smith, don't I love you ! 
Men may into smithers go ; 
But John Smith is always so. 
Ay, we're Smithers of John Smith; 
We're the leaves and he's the pith. 
Since the Greek for "smith" is "type," 
Call him Mr. Tupos. Ripe 
With old age, or else, "bad" we 
Drop like windfalls from this Tree. 
He's the Tide of which we're waves; 
He's the Fate of which we're slaves. 
Captain of the Craft of Hfe ; 
Aye, with savage waves at strife. 
Smith, thou workman ! Striker, strong 
On toil's Anvil; thou'rt the song 
Of the ages; Auld Lang Syne 
Is his history — yours and mine. 
Man ! thou art incarnate well 
In him of whom histories tell. 
Smith the saved by Love ! And ah ! 
There thy font, Matoaca, 
Hard by Appomattox Hes; 
Holds a mirror to our skies ! 



allone's songs. 113 

Landlord'' s Lass. 

Two huntsmen were coursing the Virgin State, 
And stopped at a tavern one May-day late. 

"Ho, host ! we be sportsmen; we would come in. 
And drink to the song of yV dafterlin." 

"Good cheer to ye twain ; but my little lass'' 
The hope of my house, o'er the Stream did pass 

"As the sun went yestre'en behind yon hill 
Of old Appomattox, and left all chill." 

"I've brought for her temples a chaplet rare," 
Wept Southron, "from heights far up in air." 

"Sweet ladykin ! life itself ! where she's lain, 
Immortelles, of my faith that she'll rise again, 

"Let me strew," mourned the younger; "but tell us, pray, 
Uncle Sam, how the angel passed away." 

"Alas! 'twas the stray shot of some hand hid; 
But the one who sped it knew not what he did." 

'"^ Her name was Lilian, "airy fairy Lilian." 



1I4 ALLONE^S SONGS. 

''O God!" cried Southron, "I worshiped her, 
And now have I been her murderer?" 

"Nay. nay," said the rival. "But now, good man. 
We'll comfort and serve you as best we can. 

"She that sang us 'The Light of other Days,' 
Shall be with us forever, in prayer and in praise." 



A?i Item. 

YE Natural Historians, behold ! 
To show the power of a little thing. 
Why, a potato murrain hath of old 

In Britain spread such fearful suffering 
Its consequences never shall be told. 
Thus the mysterious all-influencing 
Taint, sickness, of a single root hath hurled 
Hosts down — and changed the History of the world. 

Fi'oni U Israeli. 



Ideal Beau. 

A LORD of lilies; 
A rosewater imp; 
About the fair sillies 
A courtseying primp. 



allone's songs. tl$ 

Art itself; honey tongue; 

Flattering ; 
Grace ; god of the young ; 
"Just the thing." 

From mid-eve to dawn 
To dance like a faun; 
In the language of flowers, 
And compliment's showers; 

A furbelow fop. 
Keeping fashion's best hours; 

Of the market the top. 
With his poor tortured toes, 

At each faux-pas so shocked: 
"I" has seen all; and knows 

Quite what folks do — concoct. . 

Makes the eye of belle swim. 
With the "german" in him 
Altogether divine. 
As he "steps" to impart 
The Professor's "high art" 
In soft patents that shine. 
Of the "party" the idol; 
In crush-rooms to sidle; 
All "ah ah" and "oh"; 
The Idea of a beau. 



ii6 allone's songs. 

A Girl's Heart 

BY ECHO. 

1L0VE a revery 'mid sprays in bloom; 
I love the meadows and their soft perfume; 
The sky-blue rills, the virgin mountain air; 
The rural dell for calm and freshness there. 
Rapturing object tho' of all 
Is he who holds my soul in thrall ; 
Nothing can fascinate me view 
And mind, True-love, like you, like you. 

I love the pealing nightingale's glad wake; 

I love at eve the sighing osier brake; 

The psalm of praise and prayer when work is mute 

The wave's sad rote; the concord of the lute. 

(Burden as above.) 

I love the arts their charm miraculous; 
I love the victories of genius : 
The precious glory of my land in song — 
And song religion is — and arms aye strong. 
Pride mantles in my cheek at name 
Of each that adds unto her fame; 
But that which fascinates me view 
And soul, True-love, is you, is you ! 



allone's songs. 117 

The dealing. 

LIGHTLY the wavelets, now the blast is done, 
Curve into spray and shimmer into sun. 
Archly we clear the old main for the new, 
And misty distance hides the shore from view. 
I'he stern Propeller (staunch idea !) plies 
Its fabulous might— Buried albeit from eyes; 
Its outward token tho' the seething brine, 
And stars phosphoric in the wake that shine. 
The bulging wings of canvas stoutly fills 
The ocean's breath, that with new life us thrills. 
In background far each scintillating light 
Of warning beacon slowly dies from sight : 
And in the offing — come on duty soon ! — 
Westers in lead the star-attended moon. 
The hope-rich emigrant, resigned at last. 
The parting pang, the final fond view, passed, 
Turns with tear-dimmed eye to th' expanse ahead 
That heaves Titanically in its bed. 
High on the Bridge our silent Captain stands 
(A telescope the eye's eye) and commands 
The busy crew, none drone, the kiss of home yet warm 
Upon the lips, which sing the toil to charm. 
Piercing the gusts that whistle amid shroud, 
"All Right!" the top-man shrilly calls aloud. 



ii8 allone's songs. 

Maiden's Adventure. 

I'LL rest here awhile at the crossing, 
With my gun and horse and dog, 
Till the boatman come; and be tossing 
Cigar rings up in the fog. 

As he pulls thro' the mist dimly yonder. 
Drawing calmly his red powhatan; 

On Indian days I ponder, 

And legends about the White Man. 

I turn and amid the hills olden, 

I>ooking down on the new iron track, 

Stands Maiden's Adventure rock golden 
In sunset; and figures come back. 

The girl"" of the Pale Face, that brightened 

A moment ago at love's word, 
Starts, clings to her hero, and frightened. 

Cries, "Powhatan's men — we are heard!" 

Then ominous Shapes, each with quiver 
Of poison darts, passionate dash 

''This is said to represent "the Virginia Dare of history. 



ALLONES SONGS. II9 

Upon them; they leap; to the river 

Man and woman rush; plash after plash. 

Where are they? I know not. Poor creatures, 

Heaven help them. So has struck 
Me the unfinished story, my features 

Grow dark- — Boatman, I've had such luck. 



A Yar?t. 

A GRAN DAM sat in sweet repose, 
A-knitting socks for some pet. 
When oh ! a fly flew up her nose. 

And made her thump and thump it; 
"Dear fly!" she cried, "you are a pest 
My poor old nose is no fly-nest, 
But an old bass trumpet ! " 



TO-DAY I look upon the wide, wide Sea 
Of life and each man a wave seems to be, 
A wandering foaming ripple on a Tide 
Whose secret Undertows rule all, beside. 
Caught on the snags or broken by the Blast, 
Each watery Crest to naught must come at last : 



120 ALLONES SONGS. 

The form of air and water disappears 
In ocean that's made up of briny tears — 
Vainly ours add then to that Wilderness 
Whose smii no mortal can make more or less. 
What billow yon that seemeth mountain-high 
And looks as tho' it scales the very Sky? 
'Tis that illusion greatness — highest crest 
When measured is but a low thing at best. 
Each alike lost in the Unknown Profound 
Whose depth not Time himself can ever sound. 
Danced on a flood-tide by a hey-day gale 
The bubble " I " will over fate prevail ! 
On, on it glitters, rushing to be first, 
And gains the summit just in time— to burst. 
So the old Element careereth , 
Its flood our life is and its ebb is Death. 
Humanity its "periods" hath; presides 
Infinite ^arttti=e^ Nature like the Moon o'er tides. 
The bloody courses of her heat and strife 
Only the aye-repeating laws of life. 
Tho' bigger bubbles swallow up the small. 
Soon the God Neptune must absorb them all. 
Ah ! when the Deep unfolds its mysteries. 
That Deep which has no was^ to which all /x. 
How the last man Man's vanity will curse ! 
A mote, an atom of the Universe, 



ALLONE S SONGS. 121 

The plaything of the Passions- — poor weak Bark — 
Chases his jack-o'-lantern Hopes till spark 
And chaser vanish in the Dark. Deep dark ! 
We soon loose one another in the chase. 
So wave to wave, and tide to tide, gives place. 
London. — Anon. 



Miserere. 

BY EOT CLERESTORY. 



HEAVEN, home of perfect light, 
Hear our miserere; 
For our sons of care and blight ; 
For the fainting in the Fight; 
For the longing and the lone; 
For the anguish ne'er made known; 
For the hope that toils in vain ; 
For the prayer of speechless pain, 
Hear our miserere. 

Heaven, home of perfect love. 

Hear our miserere; 
For the sin we're dying of; 
For the lost domestic Dove; 
For the dark ingratitude; 
For the melancholy mood; 



122 ALLONES SONGS. 

For our faithless, fatal loss 
Of the power of Freedom's cross, 
Hear our miserere. 

Heaven, home of perfect rest, 
Hear our miserere; 
For the thorn in duty's breast; 
P'or the cursed and weariest; 
For the city of our heart; 
For her burning tears that start; 
For the tale of all her woe ; 
In the Raven's'' shadow, oh ! 
Hear our miserere ! 
Cakpentees' Hall. 



\_Scrc)iadc.'] 
Triangle Player. 



TINGLE, tingle, tingle, 
In the icy air of night, 
With a rirne to aid the jingle. 

Goes a Gypsy maid in white; 
Seems each star that silver-spangles 



Poe's ^'Eaver.' 



ALLONE S SONGS. 1 23 

Sky to echo the triangle's 

Tingle, tingle, tingle, 
As it falls upon the ear 
With a sound so chill and drear; 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle, 

As the polished rod of steel 
Strikes, anon with it do mingle 

Notes that, like a spirit's, peal 
From her lips — hark, as it dangles 
From the circle, the triangle's 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 
And her fairy fingers hold 
By that circle made of gold; 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle; 

" Ears that would my story hear ! 
None among you, not a single. 

But will have a cause for fear. 
If I tell of the dark wrangles. 
Keeping time with my triangle's 

Tingle, tingle, tingle; 



124 ALLONES SONGS. • 

One is tempted so to love 
Secrets One hath been born of; 
Tingle, tingle, tingle, 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 



"Tingle, tingle, tingle; 

There is an imposing tale; 
' Spirits ' and the nether ingle ! 

Truth's eno', she will prevail." 
Scarce a time her own speech jangles 
With the clinking, chilled triangle's 

Tingle, tingle, tingle ; 
For her tongue, such things to sing. 
Has a cold metallic ring : 

Tingle, tingle, tingle, 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle; 

"'Tis a stranger record far • 
Than the cypher of Chris Kingle ; 

Do the words y'r judgment mar, 
As I hint of masks and mangles, 
'Companied by the triangle's 

Tingle, tingle, tingle ?, 
Words their own corrective make 



allone's songs. 125 

That their other meaning take." 
Tingle, tingle, tingle, 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle; 

So a Romany she goes 
Thro' the wee sma' hours ; from shingle 

Cat o' Nile a shadow throws. 
Who the history disentangles 
From the chain of her triangle's 

Tingle, tingle, tingle? 
Soon ! or ere that moonbeam Eye 
Vanish as the watch comes by. — 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle. 

— By Echo. 



A Note. 

What 's truth?" The real State of things. " Life, pray?" 
The sum of Forces that resist decay. 



The Riddle of the Sphinx. 



THERE came another CF>dipus; ere long 
He thrilled the orb with trumpet tones of Song. 
The Sphinx of Albion said, "Solve me who can." 



126 allone's songs. 

That GLdipns then answered, "It is man; 
Humanity thy secret, Spirit, is ;" 
And bade the Sphinx give up its mysteries. 
That Qj^dipus is what Form ? Far unfurled 
To his seer's-eye the scenes of a New World. 
That Sphinx, that Man in Iron Mask, is who. 
That rises now transfigured in earth's view?"" 



'' Dei Me Nim Katheudein!' 

[I must sleep now.] 

—Byron's last words. 

1MUST sleep now— it is time; 
God-forsaken in this clime 
Of my heart — devoted Greece ! 
Let me rest; I must have peace. 
Dei me nun katheudein — go 
Draw the curtain; leave me so. 



''Note. — As "Uucle Sam" seems to be here alluded to, I may 
remark, by the way, that some Fanatics in the States, having 
found the grave of the original "Uncle Sam," the Provider, are 
verily proposing to claim that it, in reality, is the holy sepul- 
chre of that "Uncle Sam" who is the incarnation of the States! 
They are said actually to believe that this latter "Uncle Sam'" is 
the real man, while the Revolutiooary commissary was only a sort 
of foreshadowing him. This may be said to be Platonism run 
crazy. — Hep. 



ALLONE S SONGS. 1 27 

I must sleep — shut out the glare; 
Tell the soldiers how I fare, 
In the fever how I thirst — 
Shall my breast with longing burst? 
Dei me nun katheudein — go 
Close the curtain; leave me so. 

Too much light; I would be laid 
Now in the subduing shade ; 
Thus the hounded stag^ at bay 
Tries the Ocean's trackless way. 
Dei me nun katheudein — go 
Draw the veil; then leave me so. 



Tuton. 

Ol^HERS shall tell his perfect story, 
And clearly show the nameless glory; 
'Tis ours in outline faint to give 
The living picture's negative. 
We that, the toilers of the Sea, 
Were present at his cross, can (we 

^^ Note. — "I . . . settled myself by the waves of the Adriatic, 
like the stag at bay, who betakes him to the waters. "—ZeWers of 
lord B. -Rep. 



125 ALLONE S SONGS. 

Impassioned) with classic grace 

The splendors of his person trace? 

Let others show, with love's best powers, 

His precious life bound up in ours; 

Born of his sorrow to new day, 

We cannot tell the doleful Fray. 

His risen Excellency then 

In deed shall be the joy of men; 

His speechless love a saving theme 

To wake us from each sordid dream. 

Thine unreported Truth of truth, 

Thy pitying care — thou son of ruth ! — 

Shall be revealed to every eye 

In History that cannot die. 

Alone while in that dismal marsh 

The crooning bittern peals his harsh 

And envious tones, methinks arise 

New psalms of praise, up to the skies. 

— By Alinna. 

Note. — We're n3t aware that Taton is otherwise a family-name 
in America ; but in Slater's Directory, it happened to be crossed 
not long ago by a friend of ours, in the Reading Room of the 
British Museum ; it was the address of one, John Tuton, baker, 
of Ayr— surely the region in which the ill-starred Burns lived 

" Whyles dazed wi' love, wliyles dazed wi' driuk," , 

as his letter to a brother tells us with Highland openness. On 



ALLONES SONGS. 1 29 

To Tacita. 

FAIR Roman, be this maiden visit aye 
The type and the ideal one to me 
Of each to come. Arch virgin, I thank thee 
At this, my introduction, for the way 
That thou hast pointed out as clear as day 
To higher spheres. Oh ! it is to be free 
From vulgar I'hought; to know, to come and see 
Thyself; thy artlessness, that cannot stay 

Hidden from e'en craft's eye. Nay, the conceit 
Of art is foreign to thy glorious truth, 
Thy simple truth — that is the mightiest bond* 
Of all. The deities that in thee meet 
With holy union crowned by heavenly youth. 
Make One to whom love's seraphs must respond. 

Ihe contrary, the surname Allone is quite well-known, particularly 
in the form Allon — (that is, by-the-by, the pronuuciation of our 
top-man's cognomen,) of which the former is merely an older 
spelling. A wag aboard ship once went up to Hugh, and told 
him that the Allones were mentioned in Shakespeare ; for in one 
of the plays a king cries out, 

"Allons! Aliens!" 
See also Gen. xxxv. 8. 

In fact, however, a French name Allonne is found. Why may 
n't the Allone family have been descended of Huguenots, that fled 
from religious slavery ? — Rey. 

•^ "Hoc maximum viaculum .... hos connubiales Deos arbi- 
trantur. " — Ger mania. 



130 allone's songs. 

Hills of Carroll. 

\ ZURE hills of Carroll, 
iJL Mingling with the sky, 
As you while I wander 

Seem forever nigh, 
So my Love tho' far away 
'Mid your steeps makes near to-day 

Hope, sweet hope — 
Azure hills of Carroll, 
Mingling with the sky. 

Azure hills of Carroll, 
Like the troubled stream 

I have lone been crossing. 
Narrower did seem 

When I started than when passed : 

But hope wins y'r heights at last, 
Hope, sweet hope — 

Azure hills of Carroll, 

Minghng with the sky. 

Azure hills of Carroll, 

Long thro' thorn and dark 

To'rds you I have travelled; 
Oft have paused to hark 



ALLONES SONGS. 131 

Echoes, to my hope, of strains 

Frcfrn that Love down o'er the plains; 

Hope, sweet hope — 
Azure heights of Carroll, 
Mingling with the sky. 

Azure hills of Carroll, 

Y'r eternal brow 
Sentry to the lowlands 

As at first keeps now : 
Guard her well and may the air 
Wing to her home my last prayer — 

Hope, sweet hope — 
Azure hills of Carroll, 
Mingling with the sky. 

— By Fowh. Gle?i. 



Lilith. 

WHEN the airy wandering Lilith 
Thro' the evening shadows stealeth. 
Hist ! she whispers in the ear 
Of a stranger saunterer near; 
And she breathes what seems a blush . 
On a maid's cheek — fated flush ! 
Ah ! a pestilence her breath, 



132 ALLONES SONGS. 

And her hissing whisper, Death. 
Thro' the throng she gHdes unseen, 
Spectre pale of aspen mien : 
With her finger everywhere 
Writes a circle in the air. 
For a spell; in full moon's splendor, 
Gliding shade of hag of Endor ! 
Risen from the grave in Jewry— 
So 'tis told — with smothered fury 

To regain her hoary kingdom, Sorcery's Saviour and De- 
fender ! 
Ay, her serfs believe she '11 save, 
And e'en lift them from the grave; 
Hail the foul spook holy spirit. 
And her sealed Scroll inherit; 
And the lethal exhalation 
She breathes is their inspiration. 
On she passes like a gust, 
Fevered, lonely, crisp as dust; 
With a smile of gall; her spoils 
They she gathers in her toils' 
Veiled Lie; a shrouded chill illusion; 
Orient spirit of confusion ; , 

On she passes; mystery; 
In the steps of Wandering Jew; 
Shadow of his history; 



133 



Sprite half hidden, half in view; 
Sight each asks if it be true. 
On ! until her throne she 's got 
On the DERVISH Witches' Plot : 
There to sway 'mid night and storm; 
Till the rosy morning form 
Of the beauty of the North, 
Household goddess, shineth forth ! 
Yon of ghosty poison eyes, 
And the snaky dark locks, dies — 
For then Doom the lair revealeth 
Of the luring, lissome Lilith. 



Echo Debutante. 

NOW let me introduce to-night 
Our little daughter Echo hight, 
Who is our very life in truth; 
Such fountain is her maiden youth. 

She is our book; for her we live. 

To her our care and joy we give; 

Our darling love, a father's pride 

And mother's hope, heav'n with her bide ! 

So out upon the world's dark wild 
She goes that is our bosom child; 



134 allone's songs. 

Her song be good like milk of love; 
And well of charms her music prove. 

Your Echo, then. Responsive chords 
Y'r heart-strings be unto her words. 
May the tyrannic life on shore 
Flee like a ghost and be no more ! 



— By Miima. 



Thomas Jefferson. 



FATHER, from the Eternal City fain, 
Where 'mid Power's ruins the weird Image'' flies 
And lusciously beneath these gracious skies 
The Rose upon the Palatine doth reign, 
Fain w'd I bring to the New World's domain, 
And lay it at thy feet a Laurel, prize 
And chaplet for the height where thy dust lies; 
An offering to thy sacred Manes." Lain 
High o'er the vale while hissing icy blast 
Doth haunt thee like the ghost of tyrant past, 

'■'"Imago" was a term in common use for "echo"; also, 
"imago vocis," "imago verbi"; ^. e., the "likeness of the 
voice." 

^Mr. Jefferson in prefacing what he desired to be -his epi- 
taph uses the expression, " my manes." 



allone's songs. 135 

Yet art thou placed upon the New World's throne, 
Her people's Chair of State. Thy spirit there 
Is seated firmly as thy Mountain fair 
Rests on God's masonry of changeless stone. 
KoME, 1884. 



On an ancient, humble tombstone at Kome I found this inscrip- 
tion: 

Dis Manibus Sacris 
Pe^sidi . . . 

i. e., 

" To THE Divine Spirits 
President." 

We still speak of the " good spirits " of a person ; in a higher, 
tho' grammatically identical, sense the old Romans seem to have 
spoken of a soul after death as 

' ' sacred spirits :" 

somewhat as we may now refer to the "holy angel spirits " of our 
dead. 

Generally, however, the " D. M. S." meant that the memorial 
in question was sacred, in the fir&t place, to the collective body 
of the Angels of the Afterworld ; indeed 

" To unknown divinity " — 

that goes to constitute what is divine in history. 

Certainly we may use the expression "dis manibus sacris" of 

those who 

"Still rule 
Our spirits." 

— Hep. 



136 allone's songs. 

When the Rude Nor' wester. 

IT THEN the rude nor' wester blows 
VV And the offing fills with snows, 
And the high sea insolent 
Cometh combing o'er our craft, 
Leaping, hissing fore and aft. 
Like as by Sea Serpent sent; 

Then thine image, priceless wife, 

Comes from o'er the waters' strife. 

From our hearts' Hearth-fire, and quaff'd 

Is the spring of peace again ; 

And I hark to the loud main 

As tho' Bairnies crow'd and laugh'd ! 

— By Jack Bunting. 



" K'r Uncle Sam.' 



1AM a poor and humble citizen ; 
A quiet neighbor that loves the free air 
And open field and prays but to enjoy 
The breath of life in peace. Then let me be 
And go contented thro' my vale of toil. 
Bequeathing to my own the blessed name 
Of laborer worthy of his pay. My home, 



ALLONES SONGS. I37 

Where climbs the honey-suckle in the sun 
And Robin redbreast bubbles out with song, 
My heaven is, and I would not exchange it. 
No, not a moment think to, for the world. 

— By one who has seen him. 



The Patrolman. 



'^IS icy, glum, and breakers sweep 

1 The white dunes as doth sentry keep 
The lone patrolman eagle-eyed 
1 o scan the offing far and wide, 
Lest laboring craft or Godsend'' sight 
No sign of Myth,^ no hope, the night. 

Full quick his ear to hark the sound 
Of slatting sail 'mid tempest round; 
Or if gales bear hard down in dark 

* ''Godsend" is originally a sea- word and signifies "what God 
— or the gods — have sent ashore," e. g., goods of craft, driven to 
land. Cf. the thoroughl}' Gothic way in which the English still 
describe the unavoidable at sea as "act of God." 

^' Smyth, "Sailors Word-book," defines this nautical term 
"anything for directing the course by sight." Probably best 
spelled "mith." 
10 



138 allone's songs. 

Into the Locker'' some reft bark 
As, naked to the Fiend, she cries 
For help unto the dismal skies. 

Out o'er the hissing blackness there, 
Of German'' rocket's ruddy glare 
The rays thro' treacherous fog are shot 
From bleak Cape Fear that pitieth not. 
The lost are found ! the Servant sent 
Is savior ° Hope's embodyment. 

** "Davy Jones's Locker ; " L c. , the ocean as the place where 
dead bodies were thrown and wrecks lost (as if in at everlasting 
'"locker" or chest). How "Davy Jones" ever came to mean 
Death or the Devil in general is illustrated in the fact that it used 
to be a common form of concluding a rustic prayer to say, 

"And save our bones 
From Davy Jones. Amen." 

^ The so-named "German rocket" is frequently mentioned by 
the reporters of the U. S. Life-saving Service as one of the appli- 
ances of the Surfmen. 

•^^ ''Their saviours." — Eeport L. S. S, 

Note. — A glance at any Vocabulary of "sailor lingo," is suffi- 
cient to shew that mariners employ, what is to us landsmen, a 
complete foreign language. Who of the uninitiated could guess 
the sea-meaning of, e. g., "cant," "dogged," "ship's body,'' 
"bitter end," "double Dutch ?"— to say nothing of such rather 
paore obvious terms as "dead rising," etc. 



Allone's Songs. 



BOOK 3. 



ITy7nn 

To Silence. 

COME, holy Virgin, Silence born 
Upon the banks of Nile 
In Time's grey morn; 
That on commanding height of steep 
Calm Ida too did vigil keep ; 
Almighty maiden, pure and lone. 
Encircled by the imtoucht zone, 

And veiled the while; 
A pensive pilgrim; come, fulfil 
Thy mission; whisper, '-Peace, be still." 

Celestial stranger, from your path 

Creep cowed away 
The serpent passions; gnashing Wrath, 

And Envy hissing aye; 
And in y'r mild sight spring apace 
Lilies of virtue, that in grace 

Bow at your feet. 

Their queen to greet; 
And the soft air is freed from breath 
Of the cold secret Death. 



142 ALLONE S SONGS. 

In raiment light, 
That cunning hands in sacred Grove 
Upon the side of Ganges wove, 
Thrice blessed Mute ; minion of Night, 
With heaven-directed sight, 

And noiseless step o'er hoary moss; 
Lady that hast 
Thy arms upon calm breast held fast 

In a firm Cross; 
Hail, who descended erst, that Flesh 
Might learn of Thee and live afresh. 



Lines 

Suggested by a picture representing T/ieodoric,^ king of the Goths, in 
his character of Ro))ian Emperor. 

'''PIS done, the Goth is on the throne 

1 Of Babylon, and rules alone. 
The haughty Rome must bend the knee, 
Arch President, at last to thee, 

" *'The four first letters of bis name \SFA) S\ were inscribed 
on a gold plate, and wben it was fixed on tbe paper, tbe king drew 
bis pen tbroiigb tbe intervals." — Gibbon. 

'Theodoric' is tbe exact gotbic equivalent of 'democracy' 
{i. e., 'rule of tbe people' — objectively and subjectively.)— i?<?;p. 



143 



One who in name and nature art 
The people's sway, the people's part; 
The gerf?idin Democrat whose name 
Prophetic gathers still new fame; 
Of many one in heart and soul ; 
Forerunner of Man's Self-Control. 



THE "cunning" loco-motive, christened 'man,' 
With Adam that its maiden trip began, 
Needs much rehauUng, a new Stephenson, 
Before the upper Terminus is won. 
Our body, passenger the Home-bound Soul 
With many an interest in her control, 
Its unseen engineer love be God ! 
''Tis wrong in feed-pipe, boiler, piston-rod; 
Needs 'doctoring' from pilot to fly-wheel, 
In all parts, tender and what not, great deal. 
Give us an Idea that works ! we lack 
Not Switches quite so badly as new Track, 
New "Sleepers," a new Bed; new, better, Hands 
To run this puffing Servant of all lands; 
To manage the Eccentric, rule the steam. 
That Spirit that outstrips the wildest dream ! 
Use well the safety-valve of Liberty; 
Oil with new Unction the machinery. — By Anon. 



w 



144 ALLONES SONGS. 

The Comforter. 

"Comfort ye my iieople." 

HEN to the changeless World beyond 
The precious forms recede, 
Faith sees them still, and still as fond 

They succor our need. 
Risen in Thee, their spirits dwell 

About us all the day; 
And when sleep casts o'er us its spell. 

Their influence guards our clay. 
And when Illusion's veil is drawn 

From objects of our trust, 
How dear becomes, as these pass on, 

The One e'er true and just. 
Thou One who lovest every one. 

Whose elect see thy face; 
The same to-day as when the sun 

First started on his race; 
As one by one the things of Time 

Decay or prove but dreams. 
Then more and more art Thou sublime; 

Sure Hope; while all else seems. 



NOW that the stately Craft's pulsating form 
Chapels round about and cradles in a storm, 



ALLONE*S SONGS. ' 1 45 

Let's cast an anchor to the windward o't, 

And clear the rocks that menacingly jut 

Beleaguering the way; the passion play 

Of elements whose sum is Neptune, stay ! 

Thus bring the craft to; else our well-found home 

Breaks on the shallow, sinks beneath the foam. 

Soon the terrific monsters of the blast 

Shall, like gorged tigers, harmlessly go past. 

The throbbing engine of her heart is stout, 

And they that man her keep a bold look-out — 

Engined and built of Providence, and manned 

By gothic hearts — the frame that free men planned ! 

Her master husbands her with wisdom's might, 

Calm on the presidency's sacred height. 



Hozu Fair. 



HOW fair the rose of dewy morn 
That blushes on the cheek; 
Of virginhood what gems adorn 

While eyes shine pure and meek. 
And when the bloom of early life 

Has faded from that face, 
How is that soul with fragrance rife, 
How precious is its grace. 



146 allone's songs. 

When comes the solemn autumntide, 

Beyond price far the fruit 
Of love that learned the cross to bide 

In faith so sweetly mute. 
What hallowed memory survives 

Anon the lonely grave : 
So deeply blessed still their lives 

That youth to goodness gave. 
As angels yet they linger near, 

To solace mid the night; 
Their voices, when alone, we hear; 

Their gentle smile is Light. 
First on the altar then of hope 

The spirit consecrate : 
Oh ! when the heart is offered up, 

What peace and comfort wait ! 



A YARN it, that Craft w'd convert men by; 
A lie throughout — a lie within a lie; 
And laud the Vulgar the barbaric Plot, 
The fetich, the ideal touch-me-not. 
As virtue figures as a Quixote Sot ! 
The dogs of Dogma yap at every truth, 
And make a manger of the Crib in sooth. 
"Dogs, or men ! — for I flatter you in saying 



allone's songs. 147 

That ye are dogs — your betters far — ye may 

Read or read not what I am now Essaying 

To show ye what — ye are.". . . In every way, 

Protestant out-jesuiting the Jesuites 

Upon the side of mental Slavery fights. 

Thus the Life-saving service of the Cross 

Ends in Caste's gain and shipwrecked mankind's loss. 

The Northern family is born to hate 

The worship of the Illegitimate ; 

For "cujus Solum, ejus Coelum"! — Right 

Have none to trespass and obstruct the Light. 

The gospel of Good Life that every hour 

More proves divine in wisdom and in power. 

Is made the fable of the placemen now 

That to the secrets-loving people bow. 

Past-masters of the art of self-defence, 

("The noble art," says cunning Impudence,) 

The Scribes, bookmakers to a Steeple-chase, 

Pocket the darling proceeds of the Race ; 

Or else, despairing that, aspire to Fame 

That must be builded on the Cause's shame. 

God Gulliver the Lilliputian herds 

To slaughter drives with Brobdingnagian words. 

Let not a rabid cynicism us 

Preach down; a cabalistic Incubus. 

Must we be "merely cheated of our lives," 



14S allone's songs. 

Be 'Jewed to death,' while Hierarchy thrives? 

Shall madman make us shadows of ourselves 

With screaming Farce? Is he the Sage who delves, 

Mid -isms lost, in that abyssmal void 

When apish man was hardly anthropoid? 

Uncle Sam's Will, the Constitution, 's best. 

That says there shall be "no religious test." 

His Boys have fought that testament of late. 

And proved 't Truth's Deed, Chart of her Ship of State. 

NoTE.^-Cl.) After inventing both the character and name of 
his now historic Hero, Dean Swift discovered, to his delight, that 
there v^as actually at the time a gentleman in Boston, U. S., named 
Mr. Gulliver ! Indeed, the Rev, novelist's book was ' all in ship 
shape,' as the saying is, when, if I mistake not, the Citizen of the 
Hub was (no doubt) surprised to learn that ' ' airy nothing " had "a 
local habitation and a name ;" but did not thus betray his learn- 
ing to the new England man. 

(2.) See Blackstone, the inspired Commentator, Vol. I., book 
2, chap. 2: "Land hath also, in its legal signification, an inde- 
finite extent, upwards as well as downwards. ' Cujus est solum, 
ejus est usque ad coelum,' is the maxim of the law. ' •' Here the 
sub-commentator adds : " The lord must exercise a privilege over 
the copyholder's estate, if, during the continufince of the copy- 
hold, he works mines under it ; and a custom or reservation should 
be shown to authorize such a privilege." Further on, though, 
maybe, somewhat in another connection, in the Analysis of book 

a ^ee the fine comment on this text in St. Geo. Tucker's "Hansford : a Tale 
of Bacon's Rebellion." 



ALLONE S SONGS. 1 49 

Old Politics on '-'■ Canvass T 

SHRILLS— rumbles — whirrs - the Saxon miracle, 
The Loco' ! and, of politicians full, 
A long serpentine Train drags 'cross the land 
Of "free" speech to a rotten Platform's stand. 
The world-uniting Wonder from afar 
Reeks with the odors of the ' grab ' cigar ; 
While nearer view each grip-sack demagogue 
Discovers, grunting like a Berkshire hog, 

3, we read that unless "the trespass was wilful or malicious, the 
plaintiff (if the damages be under forty shillings) shall recover no 
more costs than damages." These remarks are made in view of 
there having been no previous ' common understanding ' of any 
sort, nor anything whatever 'taken for granted.' How continu- 
ally we are compelled to fall back on the ' lex non scripta ' of the 

ever -living Poet's ■'• 

"hiipsipodes nomoi," 

the high-born laws of the world of spirit ! — Hep. 

Editor's Note. — We are now reminded, we may as well state, 
that a great British daily, in a recent number, has said that the 
United States, in reality, had an Academic origin! i. e., it went 
on to explain that our Government was built upon Blackstone's 
Idea of the Laws of England. In this case, then, the Law cer- 
tainly was, in a great Apostle's words, 

" Hkia ton niellonton," 
the shadow of the substance to come. — Ed. 

a " That eternity promised by our ever-living Poet," 



150 ALLONES SONGS. 

Sunken in 'wild-cat' whiskey. Loud the noise 

Of 'kinky' Statesmen, hoarish self-styled "boys." 

Sordor, like a buzzard, soars serene, 

Presiding Genius of the nauseous '^ scene. 

The keener eye of the Reporter's traced 

Dirks, pistols, horsewhips round each fat-head's waist; 

For well they wot, this Party, ere they stop 

Guzzling, may each to other 'give the drop.' 

'S blood ! they are in for a free-fight the morn. 

And love each other like a Tramp y'r barn ! 

As tho' awaking from a hideous dream, 

Well that the welkin-piercing Engine's scream. 

Shrieking under prostitution, drowns awhile 

The Fenian clamor winged with Slang's most vile. 

Oh ! would to (xod the Engineer w'd wrestle 

Agonistes like with hell, and vault a trestle ! 

No parlor-phrases now the theme demands 

For callous "Canvassers," the blood-stained "hands" 

Of some foul "Boss" strange Fate's to drive allowed 

The juggernaut of Passion thro' the crowd. 

So runs the vandal mob of candidates 

Disgrace's ploughshare fiercely thro' the States. 

Ay, all the air is heavy with the plague 

To picture which e'en Rabelais 'd be vague, 

Trom Gr. ' nausia,' {i. e., 'of ship,') seasickness. 



ALLONES SONGS. 151 

The poison-breeding hell-fire of their lust 
For Office (sacred height of public trust). 
Place-hungry Elders dash into the "ring," 
Deal low malignities who Psalms should sing; 
Professors, doctors abortive, pandars, stuff 
The Sink that, like the grave, hath ne'er enough. 
Such is faint photo' of the maudlin gang, 
Hard-raving vipers of Satanic fang, 
Our Yore let, till each "organ" in each State 
Ran like a sewer, with Hell's billingsgate. 



A Afaiin. 



HOW fair the rosy light 
Is dancing on the lake; 
The vines that hail the sight 
A joyous tremor make. 

O happy morn from skies 
Thrice welcome to the shore ; 

Which saw the Three arise 
Who oath of freedom swore. 

Who swore not to be slaves. 
With words that always burn, 



152 allone's songs. 

Their sons are free as waves 

Bow ai thy feet, Lucerne ! 
Switzerland. 

(On anniversary of the oath of tlie original Swiss patriots. 
Rep.) 

Easter Hynm. 

RISING light of endless day, 
Sun of everlasting beam. 
Grant our morning prayer, we pray, 

O'er us in thy glory gleam ; 
Thou, whose power dispelled the night, 
Cast o'er us thy spirit's light. 

Let thy Grace's early dew 

Rest upon these hearts of ours ; 

Strengthen, quicken us anew, 

Like the meadows' drooping flowers; 

Now let all thy people stand 

Freshly sprinkled from thy hand. 

Glow of love, inspire our hearts. 

Driving all the chill away; 
Wake our souls, while nature starts 

To the gently touching ray. 
Thus, arisen in spirit too, 
Shall we thine own paths pursue. 



allone's songs. 153 

Source of Heaven's eternal light, 

Sun of that world, shine on this ; 
Guide us through the land of night 

To thy home of perfect bliss. 
Thrice thy holy name we bless, 
Glorious light of Righteousness. 



Virgin Mary 

Of Atlantic City. 

" Ci vitas Thalassa."— Vulgate. 

FAIR haven, where of all the year 
The springtime lingereth longest; 
Whose ties to me be alway dear, 
The purest and the strongest; 
While from its sand, as from a book, 
I on this sea of Atlas look, 
I think how dreams and 'Story vary 
As thou from other maids, my Mary. 

Blest birthspot of that Sprite, here aye 

Her halo seems to hover; 
And in yon clear blue sky I may 

Her welkin eye discover; 
And still her sainted form presides 
In my fixed faith o'er changing Tides. 
11 



154 allone's songs. 

The factious waves sink stationary 
As on them moves the Form of Mary. 

The beauty of the land, she must 

Defy or bard or painter; 
Her presence breathes on scenes of dust 

Life; and not waneth fainter; 
And what is vulgar else that breath 
With magic Virtue hallo weth. 
Henceforth there is a real Fairy 
Haunts here to me; 'tis virgin Mary. 

And thus from out the dead'ning strife 

Ascends serene and holy 
Before my view a perfect life, 

Majestic, yet so lowly. 
Atlantic City, here, tho' pall 
Of dark, like shroud, upon thee fall. 
An excellency, luminary 
That pales not, hometh: white-robed Mary. 



Oti my ''Rounding' -i^zh y^(-i^'^- 



BY ALLONE, 



A 



T end of May, the 'lovers' month of May,' 
So my first getieration I complete, 



155 



Here in mid-ocean; so at length doth fleet, 
Into one round, a Hfe time, as men say. 
And now this Song, child of my heart, away 

Upon life's waters I dismiss; this sweet 

Love's travail, to the care of lover meet, 
With panting partings I dismiss for aye: 
Go, Echo of my Prayers ! in the hour 

Of storm and dark, with tireless seabird's wing, 
As 'ministering angel,' prove love's power! 

'Forlorn and shipwreck'd Brother' solace bring, 
And lead the way home ; go, my darling Song ! 
My life ! and with thee Heaven go along. 



The White Boat 



"O God! what can that little white boat do?" cried the Captain of a brig 
that was being lost in a storm, as he saw the Life-savers' siirfboat coming.— 
Rap. 

BIG hulk that so fast in stress 



A 



Drifts on the Rocks in helplessness. 
What can yon little cockboat do 
To help, that cradling comes in view? 

" Run out the maiden white-boat !" cried 
The Keeper as the Wreck is ey'd; 
And with exulting vigor strain 
His crew; the lifeboat leaps the main. 



156 allone's songs. 

The maddened sea yawned to its bed; 
The skies were inky overhead; 
The surges rise, a watery Wall, 
And crashing on the doom'd Hull fall. 

The pilots of St. John •' are vain ; 
She strikes the secret snags again. 
The saviours catch amid the storm 
Her Master's faint, diminished form. 

The deadworks of the Old World craft 
Fall as the ^well strikes fore and aft ! 
"O God!" he calls, despairing thus, 
"What can that cockboat do for us?" 

What can a ' shell of paper ' do ! 
The Wreck is won; its staring crew 
The thwarted^' White-Boat seize amain; 
And All home's House of Refuge gain. 

a < « Two St. John pilots being of the number " of those aboard 
the brig, says the Report, 

^ 'Thwart,' bench on which the rowers sit. The 'House of 
Refuge ' is the modest asylum provided at each of the Life-Saving 
Stations.— ^^. 

Note. — "The steward of the ship, upon seeing . . . the patrol 

light" [of the L. S. S.] "commenced singing the song popularly 

known as 

" ' The Flag That Makes You Fkee,' 



ALLONE S SONGS. 1 57 

A Fosie, 
From the Home of ShakespecDrs Szveetheart. 

BY ECHO. 

LET me cull you, all to-day, 
From where Annie Hathaway 
Nestled — Bacon on the rack. 
And the old Clock tick-a-tack — 
Cull ye a boutonnier 
From the nest of Hathaway. 
Fly with me to Shottery, 
To where oft sat dreamily 
Annie on the settel still, 
At her side the hero Will ! 
By the garden's arbor hid, 
How she lists with drooping lid ! 
;^'rom that Eden let me pluck 
You, young lover, for good-luck; 
The argot of blossoms well 
Such a nosegay '11 surely tell. 
First, a sweet-brier in the mid 
Half by moss and hair-fern hid ; 
And some nice thyme, too, I've got, 

"his shipmates joining in with an enerer^' that sent a thrill through 
all who heard the melody above the roar of the surf." — Report 
L, S. S., 1882. 



15^ allone's songs. 

And the coy forget-me-not. 
Then sweet-wilHam, by a chaste 
Honey-suckle well embraced — 
From the household vine that cleaves 
Clambering to the thatched eaves. 
Surely, while a wooing breeze 
Whispers thro' the trembling trees, 
And yon well that lowly lies 
Holds the mirror to the skies, 
(Homely font o' halesomeness, 
How thy humble self I bless,) 
Sure these charms that I give can 
E'en subdue an Englishman ! 
Round the Queen-bee, as the rest. 
Cunning masons, ply their best, 
Mark what honey doth appear 
Out of sweets they stole from here ! 
So a sweet bouquet for ye 
From the hamlet Shottery; — 
Not before the stem I bind 
With a weeping- willow rind — 
Blessed tears! a saving brine 
To the Soul, a dew divine. 
And a parting prayer I '11 brook : 
Keep my posie in a book ! 
Lay them amid leaves of Song — 



ALLONE S SONGS. 1 59 

May the incense linger long; 

And when petal, pollen, must 

Sink away to vulgar dust, 

Turn you, and the mating flowers 

(That beguile the lonesome hours. 

Springing from the lap o' ground 

While the cherub birds call round,) 

Will remind you daintily 

Of the Nest at Shottery 

Ere the Dove had from it flown 

Stratford-ward, to build its own. 



A Happy Milkmaid. 



\ COUNTRY 'wench' I sing, whose grace 
t\ The 'grecian bend' puts out of face; 
No nostrum she ; no trick of art ; 
Her beauty's fountain is her heart. 
Appareled in her innocence, 
She knows no fashion's ornaments; 
With chanticleer, her dame's cock, wake, 
At eve the lambs her curfew make. 
Her breath like a new haymead's is, 

^ /. e., " Pocahoutap. " 



i6o allone's songs. 

Needs not the town's perfumeries; 

Spinning when winter days seem long, 

Defying fortune's wheel with song. 

Old tunes, fair thoughts, and homely prayer. 

Attend her, escorts everywhere. 

She wants, to deck her winding-sheet, 

A store of blossoms white and sweet. 



BYC 
Of 



Leusina. 
aesar God and by Augustus Son 



God!" o'er gateway to the marketrplace ; 
So Athen did proclaim her own disgrace ; 
Far fallen from the haughtiness up-shewn 
When dark Eleusis (summing what she'd done) 
Upon the Rock her legend bowed to trace : 
"The Herald of the Sacred, of the Race 
Of the Philosophers"— in name of one 
A nobody, a nothing now. Aloft 
Thrice humble chapels of the son of man 
Point (standing mid the ruins) to'rd the soft 
Ideal Grecian sky : the Cross's plan 
Rising against th' horizon circle, clear 
And white as washed by many an angel tear. 

Note, — 'Leusina' is the modern form of 'Eleusis' ; so I saw, 
;, alighting from the outward-bound train of Athens, about the 



allone's songs. i6i 



Madcap May. 

IN a cot beside the hill, 
Madcap May is Hviiig still, 
And at sunup to be seen 
Hurrying across the green, 
Sunny, soft and sweet sixteen. 



first thing that caught my eye was the name, on the Station there. 
With my German guide in hand, (the best *cicero' upon the 
earth,) I took up line of march right through a waving wheat- 
field, with Southern eagerness (and human nature is so Ameri- 
can!), and soon reached, heart at high-pressure, the hill-top that 
commanded the scene of so much fallen Beauty. 

' Oh ! I could weep my spirit from mine eyes,' 
as, glancing around over the plain beneath, I viewed there the 
fragments of the once-mighty Shrine of an eternal truth (the 
mystic brotherhood of man). I was ' alone in my glory' (as the 
girls are fond of quoting) ; for an elderly gentleman (of Peiraieus), 
Kurios Plato, and my room-mate at Athens, (a jolly, opera fiddling 
Turco-Greek from Stamboul,) who had solemnly made tryst to 
accompany me, at the last moment failed to 'materialize.' I sup- 
pose they only meant it for that kind of ' practical joke ' which is 
well christened a ' Greek lie ' ; anyhow, Plato and Aristides left 
me to ' tramp ' it alone. It was a halcyon day of Spring (All- 
fools-day, I believe I) ; a few little clouds were floating in the 
sunny heaven, like bits of golden fleece; and, naturally enough, 
I went into an old-fashioned reverie over 

' Ivied arch and pillar lone,' 
as I wistfully looked over to'rds Missolonghi, where the heart o% 



1 62 allone's songs. 

"What a pity," oft 'tis said, 
"Madcap May has lost her head; 
There along the brook she goes. 
Singing songs nobody knows. 
Laughing to each breeze that blows." 

Madcap says that late in Spring 
Come the fairies down to sing; 
That they have not long to stay, 
And will carry her away 
Or e'er come a summer day. 

"the mad-cap lord, pert Biron," was buried. But my musings 
were soon interrupted as if by malice prepense ; for at least half 
a-dozen undomesticated doga fncircied me suddenly, and barked 
in a fierce concert. However, I hurled a piece of marble, a 
'rough ashler,' at the ring-leader, and the whole pack fled incon- 
tinently. Then I went on with my reverie ; and, turning round, 
started a step or two toward the west, when lo! I "stumbled" 
upon a revelation : there, in the It^e of the hill top, buried among 
the high wheat, lolled a "Blossom passing fair"; she was cro- 
cheting busily, and humming a ditty. I saluted her (in imagina- 
tion, not actuall3^ ) A very Gypsy she, with hair as silken as the 
poppy upon ber bosom; somebody's dream of heaven! (some 
one's ' sweet by-and-by ' ; for doesn't 'Eleusis' really mean 'the 
future,' 'the to-come' ?) Alack! she no sooner found herself dis- 
covered, and the spell of abstraction and secrecy broken, than she 
sprang up like a startled fawn, and vanished^my platonic love 
(at first sight too !) — Rep. 



allone's songs. 163 

And the children stop to hear 
May the madcap talk so queer : 
But a Gypsy o'er the lea, 
That has told May's luck to me, 
Often tells them, "Wait and see." 



To a Cold Beauty. 



BY A FRENCHMAN. 



IDOL of Paris, soul of wit ! 
Like ])eauty that was famed so, 
Trojans were kept for guarding it; 
Idol of Paris, soul of wit ! 

But ye two vary here, I know : 
They chided her, as was most fit. 
Too much love : thou hast not one bit, 
Idol of Paris, soul of Wit ! 



Tivilight 

IT darkles into gloaming o'er the scene, 
x\nd starts the Sea-God's crystaHine extent 
Reflect the welkin's starry armament. 
A haloed Light mounts to the pure serene 
In crescent beauty, like an Orient queen; 



164 allone's songs. 

And dainty craft whose wings the storm had rent 

Are nesthng in the coves mid sweet content, 
Anchored to the veiled bed. With craven mien 
Now under cover of the sacred hush, 

Marauders that lay tremblingly in wait 
Glide on their way, as vampire at the blush 

Of morn to vanish. Lone our ship in state, 
At whose side davids the white Lifeboat keep, 
Pursues her Path along the spell-bound Deep. 



Note to Horace^ 

From Voltaire. 



OF y'r sayings the sum, "Make the best of the day," 
That I put it in rhyme, Horace, pity me, pray. 
A rhyme's a good thing for a gibberish young 
Of Goth or of Norman born— ^limber-jawed tongue. 
Jingle humors the ear; y'r Caesura, quite so. 
Tickles — why, I can't say — tho' it cuts up the flow. 
Fine rhymes full of sense take a Hearer by storm; 
Corneille and Racine have adopted this form. 
Yet the Muse of the Mask, I learn now, doth propose. 
Stockings down and degraded, to jabber in prose ! * 

' Supposed to be a thrust at Shakespeare. — Re'p. 



A 



allone's songs. 165 

' Tis mi Old Story. 

HERRING fell to loving an oyster in the deep; 

All day he yearned to kiss her, and dreamt it in his 
sleep. 
The coy and stubborn oyster lay still within her shell, 
Unmoved by all he sung her, and few have sung so well. 
At last a wish came o'er her to take one hurried view 
Of her fair self as mirrored in ocean's crystal blue. 
She oped her doors; thought herring, "What better chance 

than this?" 
And thrust his fated head in to seize the long-sought kiss. 
O herring, hapless herring, how every fish will scoff ! 
The valves flew fast together — and herring's head was off". 
And as the headless body was drifting, dead, away. 
It muttered, " This will serve me until my dying day." 

—By ''Fritzr 

Disgusted. 

"Whew! All one?" says our Americ's would-be Lord, 
By whom plebeian Jonathan 's abhorred. 



A 



Forestry Sojig. 

FORESTER winds his clarion horn; 
Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 



1 66 allone's songs. 

And listlessly roves thro' thicket and thorn : 

Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 
The roe and the rabbit pass unharmed, 
For his heavy heart is deeply charmed — 
Trala ! — la la la la la la la la la la la la ! 
By the maid he lately saw. 

The listening maiden's distant ear — 

Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 
Is rapt as the peals fall soft and clear: 

Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 
And forth she speeds far o'er the glade 
To the spot where the luring notes are made : 
Trala ! - la la la la la la la la la la la la ! 
'Tis, Robin, the maid you saw. 

Then lip to lip and palm to palm: 

Trara*! — trara !^ — trara ! 
And the huntsman's troubled heart is calm: 

Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 
"Will you share the for'ster's humble shed?" 
He asks the maid of the drooping head : 
Trala ! — la la la la la la la la la la la la ! 
"Yes," muttered the maid he saw. 

The clarion notes of the horn invite — 
Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 



allone's songs. 167 

To the dance that crowns the wedding-night : 

Trara ! — trara ! — trara ! 
See the spouse of the Hunter fondly rest 
On his sturdy arm with panting breast : 
Trala ! — la la la la la la la la la la la la ! 
So fares the maid he saw ! 



Blue and Gray. 



ly HAT'S a Sunset with no cloud 
VV Decking heaven as he's bowed? 
Sky for Blue and cloud for Gray. 
So the colors strove one day. 
But the passing rack is gone, 
And the dome of light looks on 
Over graves of Gray and Blue — 
Both bewept with tears of dew. 
And when rosy Spring comes round, 
Blooms she strews on cither's mound ; 
For she knows that Heaven aye 
Loves the brothers Blue and Gray. 
In the white ray of the sun, 
All the colors blend in one; 
Heroes Gray and heroes Blue 
Meet hands now as lovers true. 



1 68 allone's songs. 

House Not Made with Hands. 

THE house not made with hands, unseen 
Save by the eye of love ; serene 
Holy of holies; perfect plan, 
And idea of the church of man ; 
Founder and foundation of the church; 
The new name, home; in vain shall search 
The proud or low for rock more sure; 
Of commonwealth the miniature. 
Tho' homes may pass like dreams away, 
The home eternally shall stay; 
The one fix'd lighthouse never dark; 
From flood to flood the saving ark. 
How beautiful its sno^^7■ form, 
Unstained by time, unmoved by storm : 
No art reveal, no gold can buy, 
This capitol, this white house high. 
As slaves of silence feveredly 
Still hunt the wisp of mystery. 
There is an "open house" for each, 
Where Truth, herself, delights to teach. 



JVe/lie Art/m?'. 
N the white house on the height 
. Nellie lives as its delight; 



allone's songs. i6q 

Who but notes her airy grace 
And her shining morning face? 
Right about her she must keep 
The hght visions of her sleep. 
Summers twelve upon her head 
Childhood's fairy rays have shed; 
Dancing heart fore'er astir, 
Home is all the world to her. 
Angel of the white house, well 
Come y'r Dreams true, little Nell ! 



'pO you who jeer that Uncle Sam's "too thin," 
1 A Nobody, and "homely as Old Sin": 
O slanderous reporters,'^ then He's still 
A President the "Bosses" cannot kill. 



M 



Maid of Holland. 

(The Netherlanders' symbol of their Commonalty ; image of the Union of 
the land.) 

AID of Holland, picture thou 
Art of Hfe itself, I vow ! 
Health is blooming on thy cheek, 
And thine eyes such spirit speak. 

'^ Kromans, iii. 8. 
12 



lyo ALLONES SONGS. 

Maid of Holland, virgin mild, 
Of the throes of war the child, 
Ah ! the truth thou dost reveal 
Makes thee, sure, the Common Weal ! 



Goldfish in Vase. 

HOW like the men around am I, 
The mortals that I see 
Who come about my vase to spy 

Poor little prisoned me ! 
Their fate is like this unseen glass 
That I for ever try to pass 

Ambitiously. 
Tho' siren hopes as rainbows fair 

Yet whisper from the stars, 
Man's sphere, unviewcd like the air, 

Is fix'd as iron bars. 
So obstinately swim around 
To pass y'r life's transparent bound, 

My wild Tartars ! 
They took me from my freedom's stream. 

This civilized pond 
Is mine ! which I so fondly dream 

Some day to get beyond ! 



ALLONES SONGS. 171 

Ah ! they too, by the Spirits caught, 
Fret in a confine, and are taught 
Their Doom's hard bond. 

— After " George Eliotr 



Jack's Love. 

AT "Americ's" companionway 
I met my fate a summer day ! 
A lass to New World bound I pHed 
My heaven to be, the sailor's bride. 

I knew a Yes must follow No; 
Her mystic glances told me so. 
Oh ! she was fair as fair may be. 
And sparkling as the wavering Sea. 



Platd s Idea. 



PLATO, 'tis a saying hard, 
Edward-like tabooed a bard. 
"Ah ! 'tis," Muse said, such the fix, 
" Hard to kick against the pricks." 



Note —To pass from the Polity of Plato (who was indeed the 
Euclid of what Bacon, in his "Fable of Cupid," calls the "king- 
dom of Ideas,'") to what our own Emerson calls the "shabby 



172 ALLONE S SONGS. 

reality " of facts, our Father Jefferson in Query XIV. of his Notes 
on Virginia says: "Among the blacks is misery enough, God 
knows, but no poetry." Let us not suppose that by this pleas- 
antry of his he means to gird at the Muse generally ; for already, 
in the same book, he has taken pains to remark : 

' ' Homer and Virgil have been the rapture of every age and na- 
tion ; they are read with enthusiasm in their originals by those 
who can read the originals, and in translations by those who can- 
not ;'' and the frequent and elegant use that he makes of Homer, 
for instance,'' in these Notes, proves the genuineness of his love 
of "the bards sublime." 

However, the grand Commoner evidently is under the impres- 
sion that "our brother in black" is without poetry in the world. 
Ah ! have we not heard, we Southrons, the air echo with : 

"Water-millions, fresh and fine, 
Just from the Vine ! " ? 

What financiering power is reported here! What rhyme and 
reason united ! This many-meaninged text, no doubt, primarily 
alludes to Extra Dry drinkers with their ' water-millions.' The 
' watering of Stock ' is a dull piece of countryism compared to the 
additional inspiration suggested by the graceful cadence, 
" Just from the Vine ! " 

And then, such Improvisation as this is doubtless the real origin 
of rhyme. We all remember Lord Bj^ron's dictum : 
" Rhyme is of the rude." 
What dramatic skill is exhibited by the delicate portrayal of the 
'bears' and 'bulls' "smiling" and alert, as 
"Water-millions fresh and fine, 
Just from the Vine '. " 

What didosof "art"! 



allone's songs. 173 

The proverb, '*I care not who make the laws, so I make the 
songs of a nation," is here in ideal. Amid such a blizzard of the 
"divine afflatup," we may forgive the rather Rabelaisian descent 
into realism of Fytte Second of this epos : 

"Red meat, 
Full of meat, and so sweet ! " 

But Fytte Third caps the climax of oracular profundity : 

' ' Those that have money, come up and buy ; 
Those that have none, stand off and ciy." 

What oil on the troubled waters ! 



a E. g., speaking of graves above ground, in a note to his Notes, this super- 
nal Seer, whose majestic spirit reminds us of our sainted Lee, says : 
Homer describes the ceremony of raising one by the Greeks. 

ysoaiisy ^ Apyziay^ ispo'i (Trpard'^ atyfj.rjTdojy^ 
d/.-?j ercc TZf/nny^oofTrj i~\ -kazsl '/:,7/7j9~ovrw 

r(n^j o'i v/3v ysyda(Tt, /.at u'i /j^sroTztfrOa'^ laoyrai. 



174 . ALLONES SONGS. 

Helen at Troy. 

^T^HILE Helen wove with fair and cunning hand 
V V A robe of purple dye, and graced it o'er 
With battles deftly broidered that her land 

Had warred with Troy upon the Trojan shore, 
Came bowed Iris, whom the swift winds bore 

From Juno's throne upon their airy wings, 
And paused beside the loom. For guise she wore 

Laodice, espoused and born of kings 

And queenliest of their daughters, rhapsody so sings. 

Then Iris spoke: "Rise, princess, and survey 

The closing combat of this virus'd War ! 
All pant for peace, and swear that on this day 

The lords shall strive alone, and his you are 
Who wins. The bleeding hosts shall watch afar 

The contest, and grasp hands when it is done. 
If Paris conquer, Priam's walls shall bar 

You here till death. Else Atreus' royal son 

Shall bear you back to Greece, a long-lost prize re-won." 

So Iris said, and Helen's memory thronged 

With scenes of her bright home beyond the deep, 

Of friend and kin ; again her bosom longed 
For them, and prisoned tears began to creep 



ALLONE S SONGS. 175 

Across her tinted cheek : no more asleep 
To tender ties, she hastes toward the tower 

That views the field, in prayer that Jove may keep 
The son of Atreus, and restore the hour 
When peace was hers, and hope, and all their bonyant 
power. - ' / 

Upon the tower of Troy's west battlement 

Already stood the elders of the state, 
That had been warriors ere their prime was spent. 

And now gave counsel when Life's hour was late. 
Among them ashen-haired Priam sate 

In deepest care. With raiment snow}^-white, 
Sad Helen neared; and half forgetting hate. 

All marvelled at the Dark Eye whose one might 

Had given Troy her woes and Priam's days their blight. 

E'en Priam called her gently to his side 

And said: "Our pains, my child, are not your blame; 
'Tis heaven that wills them, and Troy must abide 

What that decrees. Look to the field, and name 
For me yon Grecian, giant in his frame 

And prince in his demeanor. See his crest 
Wave proudly to the breeze, and like fierce flame 

His brazen armor shine. Sure he is best 

As of the stately host he moves the stateliest." 



176 allone's songs. 

And Helen answered : " You are still my dread 

Dear father, and my pride and fond concern. 
I would I had been coimted with the dead 

When first the fiendish fires began to burn 
Within my soul, once pure. Full oft I yearn 

For death and freedom, wretch that wished to flee 
From every hope! — Yon, father, you would learn 

Is Agamemnon, chief of all you see. 

And kinsman brave and true of shameless thing like me." 

"Blest son of Atreus," cried the king of Troy; 

"In friends and realm as happy as in birth. 
Well may the trusty sons of Greece employ 

Such prowess and wise guidance, that are worth 
An army's strength, and more — and none of earth 

Can claim such ranks as marshal to y'r call. — 
And who is he with breast of ample girth, 

That walks the files as tho' to hold with all 

Some sage surmise how Fate's uplifted hand shall fall?" 

" He," Helen answered, "is the top of craft; 

Ulysses, lord of Ithac's stony isle; 
Whose fame for war's-art all the four winds waft. — 

Ah ! none there be that match his searchless wile." 
" My Lady, whom y'rself alone revile," 

Oat spoke Antenor, bant with reverend age ; 



ALLONES SONGS. 177 

"Your words have been mine also, since erewhile 
Came he and Menelaus, sent to engage 
With Troy for you, and served their day of embassage 

"Beneath my palace roof Thereby I found 

Their ways and thoughts and mien. The sturdier mould 

Of Atreus' son bespoke the battle-ground 

And his words the battle-shock ; for they were bold 

And spare, and quickly said. His visage told , 

The youth his words concealed. Not so his peer, 

Laertes' son. Methinks I yet behold 
Ulysses slowly rise (like one whom fear 
Or madness sways !) — and all around lend ear. 

"Awhile he stands agaze to earth and still 

And speechless, clenching his staff midway, enchained 
In linked thoughts; now like a silvery rill 

His words begin to flow. Life has regained 
His face; and now he stands all unrestrained 

And calm as the May sky. His clear-voiced tone 
Falls on the ear like snow-flakes that are rained 

Upon the sea as winds are mildly blown. 

Ulysses rules the hour in force none dare disown." 

Next, aged Priam pointed to the field, 

With faltering hand, and said: "What lofty chief 



lyS allone's songs. 

Is he afar who bears his massy shield 

As hghtly as a mountain-oak its leaf?" 
"The mighty Ajax," answered she; his fief 

Is Salamis, and his boast a gallant fleet. 
And lo ! beside him one whose sight is grief 

And shame to me; whom they did gladly greet 

At Sparta ; king of Proverb's slow, low-lying Crete ! 

"Two yet there are whom I have proudly sought 

To point, and vainly. Twins of her who gave 
My life of sorrow: Castor bold and haught. 

And breasting Pollux tireless as the wave. 
Sure thirst of war and fealty bade them brave 

The ocean's hazard and the battle's toil — 
Alas! they loathe to see me.'' But the grave 

Had long ere then removed them as 'its spoil. 

And they were resting stark beneath their country's soil- 
Scarce had she ceased when light Id'eaii stood 

Beside the king, and cried in tones of haste : 
"Arise, our Lord, and seal the brotherhood 

Of Greece and Troy; that man again may taste 
The sweets of peace which has so long been chased 

From every heart. As soon as Fate shall tell 
Its will the Greeks shall seek the briny waste 

To bear them homeward. Joy at last shall dwell 

In Trojan homes again, the homes all love and well." 



A^ 



ALLONE S SONGS. 

Air. 

(To " Ach so fromm" in "Martha ; or Eichmoncl market.")^ 

H ! so fleet 
Ah ! so white, 
Passed a vision in my sight. 
Ah ! so sweet 
And so bright 
From its eye that fell the light ! 
With its form 
Life was new, 
Fair and glorious to the view; 
And a storm 
Round my head 
At its glance in shadows fled. 

Ah ! so soft 
(O thy heart !) 
Passed that image from my sight, 
That I oft 

Wake and start 
Like a dreamer in the night. 
Angel ! angel ! from my seeing 

Lost, and with thee is my heart; 
Give, oh ! give me back my being. 
Thou who all of being art ! 
Ah ! so fleet, etc. 



179 



l8o ALLONE^S SONGS. 

''All in a Lifetime! 

FRET not if it grows dark around, 
If the devil's manoeuvre succeeds; 
If cold chancred hellions abound. 

And none mind humanity's needs. 
Fret not, but go calmly ahead ; 

Truth's turn will come by-and-by; so 
Stop not to weep over what's dead: 
'It's all in a lifetime,' you know. 

Fret not, but up. Battler ! to work. 

The mason rough ashler attacks, 
And despises the hard strokes to shirk; 

And granite stands modelled like wax. 
Fret not; in the Battle of Life 

"Face the music!" the issue will show 
I'he worthy work ; arm for the strife : 

'It's all in a lifetime,' you know. 



Echo's Exhortation. 



COME, come! to the high seas, worn spirits, to me; 
From the thick breath of Earth to a feast 
Of breeziest Airs; even as you would flee 
A merciless wind from the East. 



ALLONE S SONGS. 

The Blue Book of life leave behind on the strand 

In the dolorous temples of night; 
And traverse with me a revealed New-found-land 

That my magic wand raises in sight. 

Come, you that be Sea-worthy! come from the town's 

Morbid history to the salt balm 
Of atmosphere where hfe can live ; from the frowns 

Of Business, come, Hearts,'' and be calm. 



Christmas Eve. 



''T^IS winter out; the hour is late; 

1 An old man pores beside his grate, 
Rakes up the embers of the logs 
That lie in ashes round the ' dogs ' ; 
Pores, as the tallow of the wick 
Burns low in the tarnished candlestick, 
On Life so long bepast its youth, 
This nineteenth century of Truth. 

His Book hangs in his feeble hold. 
Upon his chair-arm worn and old; 

'■* Cf. Tempest L, 1 : 

" Cheerly, clieerly, my Hearts." 



1 82 allone's songs. 

He seems to bend in muttered prayer 
Before the Hearth, with weary air; 
Alone, while chiller, chiller, night 
Becomes, and fainter still the Light: 
An old man, sorrowing in sooth, 
I'his nineteenth century of Truth. 



The Katydid. 



KATY-DID, Katy-did, 
Up between the limbs there hid, 
Why not tell y'r secret out, 
And deliver us from doubt? 
For we must suspect the worst ; 
End this Mystery accurst. 

"Katy did, Katy did." 

Puzzle solve of Pyramid? 

Did it, did, this Catherine? 

No, she didn't. What moonshine 

The enigma; for I vow 

Kate did — nothing anyhow. 

Tell it, then ; be soft and slow ; 
We'll not "babbler" play, you know. 



allone's songs. 183 

Maybe, tho', the world itself 
Laid in Cyclo's on the shelf 
Could not half reveal the whole — 
Whereby hangs the tale you dole. 

"Katy did" — unfinished life 
Of a name with interest rife, 
Tell ! I am a man, you see ; 
Nothing human's strange to me. 
This is a free country, friend ; 
Let this Slavery come to end. 

" Katy did " — oh ! how I hate 
This old mystery of " Kate." 
'Tell a story,' did she, sphinx?- — 
But who that of woman thinks? 
To sum all, a guess I '11 try : 
Marry, quarrel, and then die. 

"Katy did" — if aught be in't, 
You can give us just one hint, 
And we '11 dig it up, tho' 't 's hard — 
Spades of late my lucky Card. — 
Grand arcanum, if it be, 
Make it common property. 



184 allone's songs. 

THE zephyrs buoyant in the ray, 
Scud Hghtly o'er the seas to-day 
Toward where spreads her pearly strand 
Afar my sacred Motherland; 
But on their rustling wings they bear 
My many a deep and longing prayer 
For thee, O Rachel of the west, 
Whose desolation knows no rest. 

Amid her own inspiring heights, 
Where still the eagle plumes his flights. 
Alone in those blood-sprinkled vales, 
In dust and ashes, she bewails 
Her precious dead, while on the ground 
Her marriage robe of State is found 
Parted and rent; with lifted hands. 
The matron Commonwealth, she stands. 

" Rise, O my sons ! by all the care. 
By all the toils and hopes I bare : 
Return to the forsaken field. 
With native pride that cannot yield. 
As rose the Ghosts of Old by night,* 
And high in heaven renewed Faith's fight, 

"^ ''Itisof this 'battle of the nations' that the painter Kaul- 
bach, of Munich, has depicted the legendary spirit, in the most 



allone's songs. 185 

Spirits, return ! lead o'er y'r graves 
The souls who swear not to be Slaves." 

If I forget thee, O my land, 
Wither forever this right hand : 
If I betray thy awful trust, 
Let this mouth vilely bite the dust. 
For ever thus to t)Tants. Now 
And here let me renew the vow. 
Pledge fortune, honor, Hfe, that she, 
My country, shall be truly free. 



1884. 



impressive of his great historical frescoes in Berlin. The story 
told was that the conflict was so bitter that the Dead of the day 
rose like ghosts in the night, fighting in the air; and it doubtless 
suggested to the poet of ' Marmion ' an image in his spirited bat- 
tle-piece," etc. — Lewis's HUtory of Germany, Battle of the Huns. 
The comparison of Napoleon to Attila is an old one : the latter, 
in a hortatory to his soldiers on the eve of this his Waterloo, first 
used the expression, 

"The rapture of the Strife."' 




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